A Rainy December
by pottergal
Summary: *COMPLETE* It's December and people start getting sick left and right. What's all this got to do with Helga and Arnold? Well, you'll just have to read and find out! h/a pairing with a hint of g/p, and read and review please!
1. November Sickness

Hello everyone! And welcome to pottergal's Hey Arnold! fan fiction. So here's the tale; after seeing the HA! movie, my friends and I were in desperate need of a H/A fan fic, so we started this one. We are big on Hey Arnold in the first place, and we totally love the couple of Arnold and Helga. So here I am, putting words to our outline, and hoping against hope that people like it. Just so everyone knows, this is H/A, but it's more of a coming to understand eachother tale than anything else. The story is based around Arnold figuring out how Helga works mentally, and consequently won't have much mushy mush. It will be sentimental, hopefully. The idea behind this story is the belief we hold that in order for Arnold to even begin to like Helga, he needs to see more into her softer side. So that's what this fic does, it introduces him to her hidden self. Well, enough with the excuses and unneeded explanations. Onward!

Something I forgot to add however, before we continue. Being that I am biased towards the West Coast since that's where I live, this story is going to take place in Seattle, Washington. Not that I hate the East Coast (half of my family lives in Virginia, after all) it's just that I don't know enough about it to feel confidant writing with it taking place there. Besides, I read somewhere that their city is sort of a mix of Seattle, San Francisco, and New York, so hey, it could be either place. Enough of that, to the story.

Yours forever and ever:

pottergal

PS. Oh yeah! I so don't own Hey Arnold! And all the respective characters and related merchandise. I am a poor student with absolutely, positively no claim to it; it belongs to Nickelodeon and its wonderful creator (whose name I can't recall . . . Craig something. If you know it, please tell me!).

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A Rainy December

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Chapter One: November Sickness

By: pottergal

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It was a normal school day at the elementary school of PS 118, that had started off the same as it always had for Arnold, with the seven am wake up call from his increasingly annoying alarm clocks. He'd started using two, since the one that ran on the potatoes had no snooze button for him to smack repeatedly.

"Hey Arnold. Hey Arnold. Hey Arnold. Hey –" The first one would say at exactly six forty-five every weekday; that is, until Arnold reached up, half asleep, and unplugged it to shut the darn thing up. Fifteen minutes later, his second alarm would go off, but this one was positioned half way across his room and was particularly annoying, forcing him to get up and smack the off button. He'd grumble the whole time, still half asleep, about stupid buzzing alarm clocks and stupid eight am school start times.

After he'd turned off his second alarm, he'd most likely yawn long and loudly and begin the eternal debate of whether or not to crawl back to bed. It would look so inviting, still warm from his body heat, and it would take every shred of will power not to snuggle back down beneath the blue comforter. Some mornings he'd give in, but those were the mornings that he'd wind up missing the bus and would have to run to school, his toast clenched between his teeth and his shoes only half tied.

This particular morning he hadn't given in, and had showered and brushed his teeth quickly before changing into his normal clothes of the plaid shirt, teal sweater, and jeans. Seven thirty had rolled around by the time he finished tying his shoes and he sighed a little. Grabbing his books, he had raced down the stairs, grabbed the toast his grandmother held out, yelled a hasty good-bye while shoving the toast in his mouth, thrown open the door, and had managed to make it to the bus stop on time.

"Hey, Arnold." He'd grinned at Gerald around the toast in his mouth as he climbed into the bus and took the seat beside his best friend. They did their customary thumb wiggle hand shake and for the first time that morning, Arnold was able to draw a deep breath before beginning to munch on his breakfast.

"Late start, I see. Still having trouble getting up?" Gerald had asked with one eyebrow raised. Arnold nodded but didn't respond; his mouth was full of bread. "Sheesh, man. And how many alarm clocks do you have? Five?" Gerald shook his head. "I just can't understand how you can't wake up."

"I do have five, but I only use two of them." Arnold had finally said, after swallowing the last of his toast. "The other three are broken due to . . . ah . . . various reasons." Gerald had raised both eyebrows by now.

"Various reasons? Who are you kidding? You're the one who broke them, buddy. With the amount of force you pound them in the mornings, I'm surprised they aren't in little pieces, let alone broken." Gerald had pointed out, and Arnold had rolled his eyes a little.

"I do not pound them."

"You could've fooled me." Gerald had said, giving him a look.

"All right, so maybe I hit them a little hard." Arnold had conceded after a moment. "But I don't _pound_ them." Gerald had persisted with the look.

"Whatever you say, Arnold." He had said after a moment. "Whatever you say."

The remainder of the bus ride had continued normally, well, as normal as a bus ride could get. Harold, Stinky, and Sid had managed to pull off some prank involving a fake spider and Rhonda, and consequently the bus driver had pulled over and kicked them out. He didn't care one bit about their pleas and frantic apologies; Rhonda was still shrieking in the back of the bus and Sheena and Nadine were doing everything they could to calm her down. Once the bus had started moving again, Arnold and Gerald had shared a look of half amusement and half exasperation.

"Served her right, little stuck up princess." Arnold had heard Helga mutter from across the aisle, and he had noticed she was sitting a few seats away, her angry gaze fixed on the hyperventilating Rhonda. She'd shaken her pale blonde head before turning back to her best friend, a petite jet-black haired girl. "So anyway, Pheebs . . ." She'd begun before trailing off in a frown.

"Yes, Helga?" Phoebe had asked in her gentle voice.

"You sure you're feeling all right? You've got this dazed look on your face or somethin'." Helga had asked, a scrutinizing frown plastered on her face. Her blue eyes had looked Phoebe up and down, who had just smiled slightly.

"I am quite certain, Helga. I just didn't get much sleep is all. I will be fine." Phoebe had urged, but Helga had remained silent, unconvinced. "Please, continue, Helga. You were saying?" Arnold's gaze had turned to Phoebe then, and he could see what had been bothering Helga. Something just . . . didn't feel right.

"If you're sure . . . " Helga had begun suspiciously and Phoebe had nodded with a small smile. "Where was I?" Her gaze, as though sensing Arnold's, turned and met his. He'd smiled, as usual, but was only met with a dark scowl. "Oh yeah, I remember . . ." He'd looked away then, thankful that Helga hadn't retorted like she normally did. Truth be told, it had been grating on his nerves more than usual, and last time this had happened, he'd dumped paint on her.

"What's up, man?" Gerald had asked and Arnold had shaken his head.

"Nothing. So what were we talking about?"

"The upcoming baseball game. You know, the one against the fifth graders?" Gerald had begun exasperatedly. "Sheesh Arnold, where is that head of yours this morning?" He had shrugged but Gerald continued on. "So as I was saying, we need to cram in some more practices. Can you believe it's already the middle of November? Thanksgiving is almost a week away and then Christmas is practically right around the corner!" He'd said, rubbing his hands together and grinning.

"Uh, Gerald . . ."

"What?"

"The baseball game? The practices? What about those?"

"Yeah, right, thanks for reminding me." Arnold had suppressed a small sigh. "Back to what I said, we need some more practices. Stinky and Sid need some more batting practice, and I know Harold has been dying to try out a few new pitches of his." Gerald had glanced at Arnold then, a small sly smile on his face. "And maybe this time your little fan club won't tag along and make you miss a catch again." Arnold had glared.

"Hey, that wasn't my fault." Gerald had given him the look for the second time that morning. "Okay, so that was my fault for missing the catch, but Timberly and Lila won't come to a practice. Timberly doesn't like me anymore." He had added a mental 'thank god' after that.

"Uh-huh, sure. I just hope they don't show up to the game. We can't afford to lose this one, Arnold." The sigh that Arnold'd been holding back finally slipped a bit.

"I know, Gerald." He'd looked up out the bus windshield. "Believe me, I know."

The rest of the ride to school came and went quietly, with Arnold and Gerald discussing different plays to try out at practice that afternoon. The bus had finally pulled up to the school campus and all the students had filed out into the chilly November air. As the cold nipped at his face, Arnold grumbled inwardly for forgetting his thicker sweater and scarf. He'd hugged his books closer to his body in an attempt to keep his hands warm and he and Gerald got inside quickly.

Thus the daily ritual of getting to school was over and Arnold now sat at his desk in Mr. Simmons' classroom, waiting absently for the final bell to ring and give permission to their teacher to begin. The door had banged open a moment ago, revealing a rather flushed and sweaty Harold, Stinky, and Sid. They hastily explained themselves to a startled looking Mr. Simmons, who chided them gently over being kicked off the bus, and then took their seats.

The bell finally rang at eight and Mr. Simmons rose from his desk, his chipper, ever-present smile not wavering the least. Arnold gave himself one final mental wake-up shake before sitting up to give his full attention to their teacher.

"Good morning, class! And what a special morning it is!" He began, his tone the same as ever. The happiness dripping from it was enough to make any normal person sick to their stomach, but his class was used to it by now. "I hope all of you remembered your book reports are due at the end of the day!" The class groaned collectively and Arnold was happy that he'd put his in his locker yesterday.

"Mr. Simmons." A sweet, musical voice called out, and the class's attention shifted to a certain red head. Arnold couldn't help but smile wistfully at the freckled girl as she continued with her question. "Are we still going to present them orally?"

"Yes, we are, Lila. I was just about to mention that; thank you for reminding me." Mr. Simmons smiled at her and she returned it. "Presentations of your book reports will begin after I have had a chance to read all of them." Arnold made a mental note to himself as attention shifted back to the teacher. He should get Gerald to practice presenting with him or something.

"Mr. Simmons, is there a time length that you want us to meet? There usually is, isn't there?" This time attention turned to Rhonda, who was filing her nails while looking up at the teacher with a mixture of curiosity and disdain. "I for one don't want to lose points for not talking enough."

"As if you have _that _problem, princess. Usually you don't shut up." The class laughed at Helga's quip and Arnold fought to keep a smile from his face. Rhonda turned and glared at her.

"All right, class. Settle down, settle down." Mr. Simmons made quieting motions with his hands and Rhonda reluctantly turned back to face forward. "Yes, Rhonda, there is a time limit of five minutes. And I don't want just five minutes of the plot; I want a bit of analysis on why the book was written and what makes it so important for special people such as ourselves to read. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, Mr. Simmons." She said and Mr. Simmons smiled.

"Good! Now, it's eight fifteen, so everyone knows what that means! It's history time!" He pulled down a map of the United States and whipped out a pointer stick. "Now, as you all know, we live in the beautiful state of Washington! Can anyone tell me our state's history?"

Much to the general surprise of the class, Phoebe was not the first person to raise her hand. In fact, she never lifted her arm from the desk, and her face was fixed in a rather dazed expression. After a long pause of silence, the class as a whole turned to her, their confusion apparent. Arnold twisted around in his chair to meet Gerald's bewildered and questioning stare. They shared a quiet shrug before looking back to Phoebe. After a moment, it was Helga who finally spoke.

"Hey, Pheebs, you alive?" She asked, perhaps a bit more kindly than she normally did. The little Japanese girl blinked before giving herself a visible shake and smiling gently at her friend. Helga, in the meantime, stared at her with a combination of confusion and worry. "Since when do you stay silent when Mr. Simmons asks a question?"

"Whatever are you talking about, Helga?" Phoebe asked and both Helga and Arnold frowned.

"Uh, earth to Phoebe. Mr. Simmons just asked us about our state history. Now are you sure you're feeling all right?" Phoebe blinked a little before looking up at their teacher. There was a moment of silence, but she finally nodded and smiled at Helga.

"I already told you, Helga. I'm fine." Phoebe turned her smile to Mr. Simmons. "I'm sorry for interrupting your lesson, Mr. Simmons. Please continue."

"Helga's right, Phoebe. Are you sure you're okay? That was the first time you've never answered a question in class." Mr. Simmons asked, his happy smile fading to a concerned expression. Phoebe's smile faltered a bit and Arnold could see the exasperation in her eyes.

"I didn't sleep well last night, but I am fine." Her words came out a little more pointed than normal, their usual gentle quality wearing thin. "Please, Mr. Simmons, I'm all right. Continue." He regarded her curiously for a moment longer but finally turned back to the map. Arnold and Gerald shared one last confused look before Arnold turned back around in his seat and returned his attention to Mr. Simmons.

"Anyway, as I was saying, we are going to begin today's lesson by looking at the European exploration of the state and the Maritime fur trade from 1741 to 1806. Then tomorrow we are going to fit Americans into the picture and their entry into the fur trade rivalry. Doesn't that sound just so exciting, class?" Mr. Simmons said, his bouncy attitude back in full force. There was a collective grunt of acknowledgement and he promptly returned to his lecture.

Arnold sighed a little and slumped into his seat. Normally he enjoyed history lessons, but for some reason, today he could care less about the amount of otters certain Europeans killed for their glossy pelts or the Native American happenings throughout it all. As Mr. Simmons piped on and on and on, Arnold found himself slipping further and further away, his mind wandering back to his warm, inviting bed . . .

"ARNOLD!"

"HUH?" He jerked upright, his mind foggy but his eyes wide and his heart racing. He looked around the classroom in confusion to find everyone either snickering or shaking their heads. "What's going on? What happened?"

"You were sleeping, Arnold, that's what happened." Mr. Simmons said, his smile gone for the second time that day. Arnold blinked, his heart rate slowly returning to normal. He looked up at the clock and stared when he found that it read nine thirty. "At first I couldn't tell, but then you put your head down. How long have you been asleep?"

"Um . . ." His mind began to backtrack furiously; what was the last thing he remembered hearing?

"Have you slept through my entire lecture? Arnold, I am very disappointed in you. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to stay inside during recess today to make up the learning time you lost." Arnold opened his mouth to protest, but upon seeing the stern look on Mr. Simmons face, he closed it and hung his head a little. The class snickered as a whole.

"Good one, football-head." He heard Helga mutter and tossed her a dark glare.

"Class, please. Let's return to the lesson."

Recess came and went, with Arnold receiving a severe reprimand from Mr. Simmons for sleeping in class. He apologized and promised that it wouldn't ever happen again, but Mr. Simmons didn't let him go outside. He was allowed to go to his locker and anywhere inside the building, but nowhere else. Gerald kept him company and the two walked the halls, talking about their upcoming practice to get Arnold's mind off the punishment. 

Harold, Stinky, and Sid had come up to them about half way through recess to tell them that they'd come this afternoon, and Harold had promised to show them some great new pitches he'd learned. They were awesome, he'd said. Downright awesome.

Arnold had also managed to get himself drenched by the drinking fountain, but surprisingly enough, it had nothing to do with Helga, his eternal tormentor. In fact, it was a prank played by Curly, who'd been lying in wait for Eugene for some reason or another, and Arnold happened to be unlucky enough that he walked past at the exact moment as the school jinx. The spray of water didn't hit the intended target; it doused an unsuspecting Arnold.

"Man, buddy, this just isn't your day. First sleeping in class and now this." Gerald had said, shaking his head as Arnold tried his best to dry himself off with a towel from the nurse's office. "At least Curly is getting a detention or something. Principal Wartz was chewing him out last I heard." Yet it did little to comfort Arnold, who had to sit through the rest of class in damp, clinging clothes.

Lunch time finally came and Arnold's clothes had finally dried enough for him to be comfortable. The bell rang and the class raced from the room, anxious for their sandwiches or to be first in the lunch line. Arnold and Gerald each snagged a tray and fought looks of pure disgust as the lunch lady ladled them each a bowl of the day's special, mystery chili.

"This is the last time I forget my lunch on a mystery day." Gerald muttered as he reluctantly accepted the bowl of bubbling brown goo. "Ugh, think it could get any nastier?" He whispered to Arnold, who grinned. "And I wonder what mystery means . . ."

"They probably put the mystery meat in it." Arnold suggested as they moved towards the end of the lunch line. "Ah, the last tapioca!" Just as he reached for it however, someone else grabbed it. He was about to protest and ask for it back, but then he noticed it had been Helga who'd grabbed it. Remembering what she'd done last time he'd asked for it, he decided not to press his luck, seeing as he'd already been drenched today and yelled at for sleeping in class.

"Yeesh, Pheebs, could that Simmons be any more boring? I mean, even Arnaldo drifted off." She said to her friend as she set the pudding on her tray. "I think that says a lot. Wouldn't you agree?" But there was no answer. "Pheebs?" Arnold blinked as Helga set her tray down and turned her full attention to the girl infront of her. "Phoebe, are you all right?" Arnold blinked again, but this time it was because of Helga's voice. She actually sounded . . . sincere and worried.

"What's going on?" He asked as he peered around Helga. Phoebe stood infront of them, her hands clenched around one of the three bars they'd rest their trays on and her chest heaving slightly. Her expression was once again dazed.

"Phoebe, what's going on?" Helga touched her friend's shoulder, but the girl didn't respond. "Phoebe, answer me!" Beneath the concern Arnold held for Phoebe's sudden state, he noted dimly the difference in Helga's voice. He rarely heard her talk like this, her tone free of sarcasm and that sneer; it was the same as the one he'd heard when they'd spoken atop the FTi building.

"Everything . . . is spinning . . ." Arnold heard Phoebe whisper as she squeezed her eyes shut tight.

"What? What do you mean?" There was a note of panic in Helga's voice now as Arnold sensed Gerald come up beside him. "Phoebe!" The girl was falling backwards as her grip on the bar vanished. Helga lunged forward, but Gerald was quicker and he caught Phoebe before she hit the ground.

"It's okay, she just fainted." Gerald said after a moment as he looked up at Helga and Arnold.

"Thank you for stating the obvious, Geraldo!" Helga snapped at him and she touched Phoebe's shoulder gently. Arnold watched with amazement as her glare slowly melted away as she looked at her friend. "Any idea why she would just collapse like that?" She said softly and Gerald shook his head.

"But I do know we should get her to the nurse's office. Arnold, could you take my lunch and save me a seat? I'll be back after I take Phoebe." Gerald asked as he picked up Phoebe's legs and Arnold nodded. He watched Helga get the door for Gerald and the two of them vanished into the hall. Arnold frowned a little in thought as he took Helga's pudding, she wasn't going to need it after all, he told himself, and picked up the two trays.

"Hey, Arnold! What just happened?" Sid called and Arnold moved to sit with him, Stinky, and Harold. "What happened to Phoebe? Why did Gerald carry her out of here?" Arnold picked up his spoon and thrust it into his mystery chili.

"I wouldn't eat that if I were you." Stinky cautioned in his mid-western drawl.

"Why not?" He asked as he lifted the full spoon to his mouth.

"It's as nasty as a bucket full of sheep's stomachs on a hot summer day." As he spoke, Arnold had swallowed the spoonful of chili, and every part of him began fighting the urge to gag. It must've shown on his face because Sid and Harold both started laughing. "I reckon I told you so."

"Gah, never again." Arnold said as he pushed the bowl away, his appetite almost completely ruined. He opened his milk and drank about half of it in one gulp to drown out the nasty flavor of the chili still lingering in his mouth. "Never again will I brave mystery day."

"At least you still have your tapioca. They were out when I passed by and the lady refused to bring out a fresh batch." Sid said enviously as Arnold began to dig into his pudding. "But you still haven't answered my question. What happened to Phoebe?"

"She fainted. And I haven't a clue to as why." Arnold said, savoring the flavor of the tapioca. "So about practice this afternoon. Do you guys have any plays we should try? Plays that might help us beat the fifth graders?"

"Aw heck, Arnold, you know we aren't that great at strategizin'. We leave that up to you and Gerald." He sighed a little as Stinky slurped at his milk. "You two never fail in comin' up with the best plays."

"Yeah, well . . ."

"Hey buddy. Thanks for saving my seat." Everyone looked up as Gerald plopped into the seat beside Arnold. He took one look at the lukewarm mystery chili and blanched. "Ugh, I couldn't eat this if you paid me." He pushed it away in disgust and grabbed a piece of fruit from the giant pile infront of Harold.

"Hey!"

"Stuff it. Everyone else needs to eat too, and it looks like you raided the supermarket. You can spare some." Harold grumbled as Gerald peeled the stolen banana, but he didn't demand that it be given back.

"So what's the deal with Phoebe? Is she going to be all right?" Sid asked as Gerald took a bite of the banana.

"The nurse said she has a fever, but that's about all she could tell without Phoebe conscious. She sent Helga to call Phoebe's parents and told me to go back to lunch." Gerald said, his mouth full of banana. "I for one hope that whatever she has isn't contagious. We can't afford to be sick for the big game." Sid, Stinky, and Harold all nodded in agreement. Arnold ate his tapioca in silence, his mind wrapped up in thought.

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What in the world could make a person collapse? Flu? Cold? I hope Phoebe doesn't have anything serious. He frowned a little as he remembered Helga's actions. Now there was one confusing girl. One minute she was about ready to bite his head off and the next . . . She'd pop up in weird places, like his fire escape, and would never fail in managing to knock him down when she came around corners. 

She was an enigma. One giant puzzle that Arnold could never solve, no matter how hard he tried. It was like . . . he was missing pieces or something. He was missing the few key pieces that would make Helga's strange behavior suddenly make sense. His mind began to drift for the second time that day, thinking about all the times he'd seen a completely different Helga; a Helga who honestly cared about the people around her.

Then there'd had been that . . . confession of hers, if one could really call it that. Things had just become more confusing for Arnold after hearing that; there was no way a person who picked on him every single waking hour could be in love with him. It just didn't make sense! How could . . . _Helga_, a person who called him football-head on a daily basis and glued feathers to his butt and shot him with spitballs be head over heels in love with him?

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But she denied it, remember? Took back every word, saying she'd been lying to get me off her back. He remembered telling himself with relief. He'd dismissed it then, and everything had gone back to normal. Sure, for the few weeks of rebuilding they'd done, Helga had been distant and had avoided him at all costs, but when they'd gone back to school, the tormenting had begun again in full force.

"Yo, earth to Arnold!" He jerked slightly in surprise to find Gerald looking at him oddly. "Did you not hear the bell? We have to get to class."

"Oh yeah, sorry. I wasn't really listening." Arnold stood and the two of them threw away the remains of their lunch before heading to get their things from their lockers and then walking back to the classroom. As he took his seat, Arnold noticed that Helga hadn't returned. Had she gone home too? He could only wonder.

"All right class, settle down! It's time to start the next lesson!" Mr. Simmons said after the bell rang. "Now we're going to focus on times tables! I hope everyone has learned up through twelve by now, because we're having a surprise quiz!" The class groaned as he whipped out a sheet of papers and began to pass them around.

"Great, just great! I didn't study, did you?"

"What?! How is it possible to know up through twelve times twelve?! I can barely remember two times three!"

"Someone should kill me now . . . I'll be dead when this quiz is over anyway." Were just a few of the general moans and whines among the students as Mr. Simmons passed out the quizzes.

"Hm? What's this? Where are Phoebe and Helga?" Mr. Simmons asked, and right on cue, the door swung open. Arnold looked up from his paper to see a tight-lipped Helga, her face white as a sheet and her customary scowl replaced by a look of slight terror.

"_Helga?_" Someone said in amazement. No one had ever seen her look so . . . so frightened. She walked into the classroom slowly and handed Mr. Simmons a note.

"Phoebe went home I see. And you were staying with her until she left." He said after reading the note. "Why did she go home?"

"She's sick." Mr. Simmons raised an eyebrow at Helga's response. It didn't sound like her customary snide manner; it was quiet and contained and held a tremor of anxiety.

"Helga? Now I'm going to have to ask you if you're feeling all right. Is something bothering you?" Mr. Simmons asked and placed a hand on her shoulder. She stared at him for a moment.

"May I be excused for a second?" She asked in a timid voice and concern filled Mr. Simmons gaze. "It's just that . . . Phoebe is really sick. Her fever was so bad that she was acting delusional. They . . . they had to rush her to the hospital, and . . . I heard the nurse say that she could die if they don't bring her fever down." The class fell completely silent and Mr. Simmons nodded.

"Of course, Helga. You may be excused for a moment or two." She nodded in thanks and raced from the classroom. Arnold looked over his shoulder at Gerald, only to find his best friend in a state of total shock.

"Phoebe . . . might die?" Arnold heard him whisper.

"Is that even true, Mr. Simmons? Could you really die from a fever?" Arnold continued to keep his gaze on Gerald while Sid voiced the question many people had been wondering about.

"I'm afraid so." The whole class gasped at Mr. Simmons answer. "Think of it like this, Sid. Your body is a very finely tuned machine that runs best when the temperature is around ninety-eight degrees, right? If it gets any warmer than that, to, oh say, one hundred degrees or so, you begin to feel sick. But what happens if you have a temperature of one hundred and four? Or one hundred and five? A machine as sensitive as your body doesn't function well at those temperatures. In fact, it begins to break down, it begins to fall apart."

"Fall . . . apart?" Arnold heard Eugene whisper and Gerald paled. The whole class seemed to be imagining Phoebe coming apart at the seams.

"Not many survive a temperature higher than one hundred and four. So if Phoebe does have an extremely high fever, then it is the utmost importance for the doctors to bring it down." Mr. Simmons said, and to everyone's general surprise, he collected the quiz papers. "I can see your minds are not on math at this moment, so I think I'll take this opportunity to move on to our unit on the human body. Nadine, if you don't mind, would you go to the book cupboard and give everyone a science book?"

As Nadine handed everyone a book and Mr. Simmons put away the stack of papers, Arnold reached out and shook Gerald a little. His best friend blinked a little and threw him a shaky smile.

"You all right, Gerald?"

"It's crazy, ain't it? To think a person could die from a fever . . . I never knew that. Did you, Arnold?" Gerald said as Nadine passed him a book. "And how old is Phoebe? She's so young! I never thought anyone could die of a fever . . . do you know how light she is? It was like I was carrying a feather. Well, it was a really really big feather, but she was so light."

"Gerald?"

"I didn't think a person our age could die of anything like a fever! You get sick and you get one, but you go and you get medicine, and you get better. You don't come close to dying, that's for sure. How many people do you know, Arnold, who could die from a fever? I never thought Phoebe would be in that category. She never gets sick; she's always so perfect!"

"Gerald."

"And she's never concerned about herself! You heard her, all day. Not once did she complain or try to worry anyone! Sure, we all wound up worrying because she was acting funny, but I never thought she'd be sick. I just believed her, that she hadn't gotten enough sleep and was a little drowsy! Man, Arnold, her fever must be pretty bad to make her collapse like that. You saw her, just started getting dizzy and then she fainted!"

"GERALD."

"What, man?"

"Gerald, you're babbling."

"I am?"

The rest of the day continued in essential silence, with Helga returning about half way through the science lesson. She still looked rather pale, but her presence seemed calmer and more in control. She took two books, one for herself and one to take to Phoebe, and then sat down. Arnold couldn't help but follow her with a slightly concerned expression, and to his surprise, when she'd caught him looking at her, she'd actually given him a small reassuring smile. I'm fine, it had said. Now go back to your lesson.

On the bus ride home, Arnold chose a seat infront of Helga, and after about fifteen minutes of Gerald's mindless babble, he turned around to face her. She was staring out the window silently, her deep blue eyes distant and reflecting the passing scenery. Arnold watched her for a moment, in awe of how profoundly sad she looked. A small sigh escaped her thin lips and her gaze returned to the present. She looked away from the window, her countenance still immersed in the depths of sorrow. Her emotions had reached out to Arnold, so real and tangible and painful, that he wanted to reach back and drive them away . . .

But then she saw him looking at her. The change was so abrupt it was startling; the sorrow vanished in an instant and was replaced by the same angry glower that she normally wore.

"What're you looking at, football head?" He sighed; so much for the profound sadness.

"I just wanted to tell you that we're having a practice for the upcoming baseball game this afternoon at Gerald Field. Can we expect you to be there or not?" He asked, filing away the incident for later analysis. She stared at him with that scrutinizing gaze of hers, the one that made him feel as though every part of his spirit was being scanned, and after a moment, she nodded.

"I have to stop by Phoebe's and see if her mom is home yet, but I'll be there." And with that, she turned her attention back to the window. Arnold watched her for a moment, and she turned back to him, her expression now both angry and questioning. "What?" She demanded, her brow furrowed in that scowl of hers.

"Are you all right?"

"What kind of question is that? Don't you get sick of asking it, football head?" She scoffed. "I'm sure getting tired of hearing it from every single person who sees me. What is it about me anyway? Do I have a sign or something taped to my forehead that says 'Ask me if I'm okay, because I really don't know'? Crimeny!" She folded her arms across her chest and huffed a little.

"Helga, you still haven't answered me." Arnold said, pressing her a bit. She glowered darkly.

"What do you think, Arnoldo?" The two began their customary glaring match, and to Arnold's surprise, Helga backed down after a moment. She looked out the window with a sigh. "I can't ever win with you, can I?" He heard her mutter and he frowned. What did she mean by that?

"What did you say?"

"NO, I am not okay, football head." She snapped. "My best friend just collapsed right infront of me in a feverish delusional heap, and began tossing her cookies all over the nurse's office. She kept running into things, tried to escape the room because she thought she'd been locked in prison, and scratched up the nurse pretty badly. I was the only one she'd listen to, but that's because she thought I was her mother." Helga drew a deep breath as she scowled at him. "Now I ask you. Would you be okay after something like that? Would you be okay if Geraldo here suddenly started attacking everyone who came into the room?"

"Never mind, Helga. I'm sorry I asked."

"You should be." She retorted and turned back to the window for the umpteenth time that day.

"She really did all that?" Arnold blinked and looked at Gerald, who had turned around and was watching Helga with a stunned expression. "She really started beating up on people?"

"What is this, Pester Helga Day or something? YES!" And with that she showed them her arms. Gerald gasped a little as they noticed the long, thin, and red scratches all over Helga's arms. "The nurse was in such a hurry to get Phoebe out of there that she didn't have time to give me something for them. I tried cleaning them with soap and water, but it didn't do much good."

"Helga, could I come with you to see Phoebe's mom?" She and Arnold stared at Gerald, who was focused on the scratches on her arms. "I want to find out how Phoebe is doing." Helga watched him for a moment before finally nodding.

"Sure, Gerald. I don't think she'd mind. Maybe Phoebe'll be there or something and you could see her." Helga said gently and again Arnold was forced to marvel at her. The way her whole demeanor could change in a split second was amazing, but it only made her ten times more complex. One thing was certain however; it was probably going to take him a very, very long time before he figured out the Helga enigma.

*~*~*

So there's the first chapter. What'd you think? Questions? Comments? And what's going to happen to Phoebe? Well, stick around for the next chapter when we find out! And I apologize if any character is really not right. I tried my best to keep them in character, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. Let me know if you think Gerald is acting extremely un-Gerald like. Hope you all enjoyed it and I hope that it made you want to know more! -pottergal


	2. It's Contagious

Hello again! It's pottergal back again with the second chapter of _A Rainy December_. I hope everyone liked the first chapter enough to come back and read this one; otherwise I'll have to cry or something. No, just kidding. I won't cry, I'm too old for that. Anyhoo, hope people aren't too confused with what's happening so far. People start getting sick and through this experience, Arnold begins to unravel the mystery that is Helga, and they grow closer because of it. How's that for a plot? Thanks so much to every single person who has reviewed or sent me an e-mail. I really appreciate it! And now it's time for a little shameless self-promotion: if you're also a fan of HP and you like the Harry/ Hermione couple, check out my other fic, _Only Talking_ and tell me what you think!

Love forever and ever:

pottergal

PS. All disclaimers still apply and they apply throughout the whole fic. I DO NOT own HA! And thank you so much to everyone who told me that it's Craig Bartlett. You actually remember a question of mine even after my seriously long chapters, wow.

Before I forget, don't expect a real regular schedule for these chapters. Usually I can write them in about three days but then I have to go back and edit like crazy! There's so much I change around over the course of a couple of days that it's insane. Well, I'll probably update ever five days or so, but we'll see won't we? Thanks again to everyone who has reviewed!

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A Rainy December

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Chapter Two: It's Contagious

By: pottergal

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It was seven fifty in the morning when Arnold took his seat in the classroom at PS 118. It had been a couple of days since Phoebe's collapse, and surprisingly enough, the class had returned to normal. Sure, it was awkward when no one would answer Mr. Simmons questions, but other than that, nothing seemed like it had changed. Well, that would be lying. Gerald was still acting funny, but Arnold ignored his behavior. He'd asked himself, how would he feel if the girl he liked was suddenly in the hospital for a high fever? And then Gerald's behavior had seemed almost . . . normal.

"Hey, Arnold!" Sid and Stinky walked up to him just as he sat down and he smiled in greeting. "Are we having practice today? The one we had a few days ago did a world of good."

"I'd like to have one, but I've got to talk to Gerald. He wasn't on the bus today, so I figured he was running late or something." Arnold said as he tucked a few of his books away and removed his thick red scarf. "And I agree with you about the practices. That's why we're having them after all; we want to be as ready as possible when we face the fifth graders."

"You know I reckon Helga wasn't ridin' the bus today either?" Stinky drawled and Arnold blinked a little. He hadn't noticed that, but now that he thought about it, the ride had seemed oddly quiet. "Do ya think she's sick as well? That would be horrible considerin' the upcomin' game."

"She can't be sick! She's the best catcher!" Sid said, a note of horror in his voice. "Oh no, oh no! What're we going to do if she is?" Arnold fought a small sigh of impatience.

"She's not sick. She probably stopped off by Phoebe's or something." Just as he spoke, the two people in question burst through the door, glowering at eachother.

"See, Helga? We're _not_ late. So you can stop with the complaints already." Gerald said, his voice full of frustration and hostility. "I couldn't believe how rude you were being, especially when Phoebe's mother was nice enough to give us a ride to school in the first place!"

"We wouldn't have had to ask her if you hadn't showed up and asked to see Phoebe, Geraldo! What is it with you anyway? Why do you have to see her every single morning and afternoon? The fever has been brought down, so she's not going to die." Arnold watched Gerald glare darkly at Helga, but he didn't respond to her last question. Instead he stomped past her and plopped down in his seat angrily. Helga made a small angry noise before walking to her desk and taking her seat. Arnold couldn't help watching her curiously as she pulled out a little book and began to write in it furiously. What was so interesting about her? He asked himself. Why couldn't he just let her be an unsolved puzzle?

"Man, that girl just drives me off the edge sometimes!" Gerald's angry mutter snapped Arnold's attention to his best friend. "I stop by Phoebe's to see how she's doing, and what do I get? A morning with the girl from hell." Sid and Stinky both snickered as they moved to stand before his desk.

"So are we going to have another baseball practice this afternoon? Stinky and I have been practicing our batting on our own, and we managed to do pretty well." Sid said and Arnold frowned when Gerald didn't answer. His gaze was still angry and after a moment, he knuckled his forehead.

"And to top it off, Timberly kept waking up the house last night with her nightmares, so I didn't sleep much. Man, think the nurse has anything for a headache?" Gerald began rubbing his temples. "Helga didn't help it either, with her mean attitude."

"You could try the nurse, Gerald. She probably has aspirin, or something." Arnold suggested, a concerned frown growing on his face.

"You'd better hurry, Gerald. I reckon the bell is gonna ring in a couple a minutes." Stinky said, but Gerald didn't move. He squeezed his eyes shut and continued to rub at his temples. Arnold felt his frown deepen as he looked from Gerald to Sid and Stinky, who both shrugged in confusion.

"Gerald?" Arnold tried and his friend opened his eyes.

"Wha . . .?"

"Do you want to go get something for your headache or not?" Gerald nodded slightly at Arnold's question and stood slowly. He wobbled a little and grabbed onto Sid to steady himself. "Gerald, do you want one of us to go with you?" Arnold had stood by now, silently wondering how bad a headache Gerald had. He shouldn't have even come to school this morning if it was impairing his ability to walk.

"No, no, I can get there on my own. Thanks, though, buddy." Arnold watched Gerald walk down the aisle of desks to the door. "I'll see you guys in a bit." He reached for the handle and opened the door, but then stopped. Arnold and Sid shared a worried frown before starting towards him.

"What's this? Gerald, why are you just standing in the doorway?" Mr. Simmons' voice floated to them and as Arnold and Sid neared, they saw him standing in the hall, his briefcase tucked beneath his left arm and his usual thermos full of coffee held in his right. "Gerald?" Their teacher asked again when there was no response.

"Gerald, what's up?" Sid asked as they got to his side.

"Everything . . . is . . ." He began, his brown eyes wide and his hand tight around the door handle. Arnold met Mr. Simmons worried gaze before turning and addressing his best friend.

"Everything is what?" He asked and noticed Gerald gulp.

"Spinning . . ." And with that, he keeled over forward. Mr. Simmons managed to catch him, but not without dropping his briefcase and his thermos of coffee. They clattered to the ground as he struggled with Gerald's dead weight.

"Oh my gosh, Gerald!" Mr. Simmons said as Arnold and Sid took the unconscious boy. Arnold placed a hand to his friend's forehead and felt his eyes widen.

"Mr. Simmons, I think Gerald has a fever." He said grimly and watched their teacher blink. "Sid and I will take him to the nurse's office, okay?"

"Yes, I think you should, Arnold. Good lord, what was he doing at school in the first place?" Mr. Simmons shook his head sadly and picked up his dropped items. "In my day, parents would notice these things and stop their children from coming. I never thought I'd see the day when kids would be forced to come to school even though they're sick!" Arnold heard him mutter as he picked up Gerald from the front and Sid grabbed his ankles. "First Phoebe, then him . . . what is this place coming to?"

"Let's go, Sid." Arnold said, not trusting himself to say anything to Mr. Simmons. It wasn't Gerald's mother's fault that he'd come to school sick; Gerald himself hadn't noticed it until just now. "The nurse's office is right around the corner."

"Okay."

A few hours later, Arnold opened the door to the boarding house and automatically sidestepped as a slew of animals raced out. School was still in session, but he'd asked for permission to go home and change his clothes. Of course the principal let him. Gerald had thrown up all over him, not purposely of course, and consequently, he stank.

"That you, short man? What're you doing home so early?" Arnold heard his grandfather call as he stepped into the house and kicked off his shoes. "Oh, yuck, what's that horrible smell?"

"It's just me, Grandpa." Arnold said as the older man came out into the hall, his nose wrinkled in disgust.

"What happened? That girl with the one eyebrow play a prank on you again? Or did you get sprayed by a skunk?" Grandpa pinched his nose closed as Arnold started up the stairs.

"No, Grandpa. Gerald got sick and threw up on me. I'm going to take a shower and change, and then I have to head back to school." Arnold noticed that shower was free and said a mental 'thank you'.

"You do that, short man." His grandfather called. "In the meantime, I'll have Pookie fix you something to eat. Maybe that'll make you feel better." Arnold threw him a smile.

"Thanks, Grandpa."

In about half an hour, Arnold had showered and changed, and was sitting in his kitchen, eating a stack of pancakes his grandmother had made for him. They were covered in maple syrup, just the way he liked them, and Grandma was now frying him an egg and a couple of pieces of ham. Think of it like a late breakfast, she'd told him as she'd poured him some orange juice, and eat up.

"So why did your friend toss his cookies, Arnold? Is there a bug or something going around?" He looked up at his grandfather, who'd just taken his dirty clothes down to the basement where the washing machine was.

"There must be, Grandpa. A couple of days ago this girl named Phoebe collapsed in pretty much the same way as Gerald did today. But she had a really bad fever so they had to take her to the hospital. Gerald thankfully didn't have anything like that, but he still started throwing up all over the place." Arnold said as he took a sip of orange juice.

"Here you go, Kimba."

"Thanks, Grandma." He said as she placed the eggs and ham on his plate. "The nurse had me call his parents and then she sent me to the principal to get permission to come home and change."

"And so here you are. That's quite a tale, Kimba." He nodded as he finished off his late breakfast and gulped down the last of his orange juice. "Do you want anything else before you make the long journey back to that institution of yours?" He shook his head but smiled at his grandmother.

"I'm fine, Grandma. I gotta get going." He put his plates in the sink before grabbing his shoes from the hall. "Thanks for the food, Grandma! I'll see you guys after school!" And with that, he raced out the door, moving aside for a moment to allow the herd of cats and Abner back into the house.

The next few weeks were pretty bad. People were collapsing left and right with the strange flu, and Arnold was glad to see that it wasn't just his class that was affected. He'd heard that Wolfgang, the bully, had come down with it as well, and consequently wanted to postpone their game until after he had all the possible man power he could. This suited Arnold just fine, because not only Gerald, but also Rhonda, Nadine, Sheena, and Harold had all collapsed at certain points during the day. Arnold felt especially horrible when he noticed Lila didn't show up one day, and someone informed the class that she'd collapsed at home and wasn't going to be at school for a while.

Mr. Simmons, however, was one happy clam. He now had a very small class, which was what he'd always wanted and kept telling them the statistics of how smaller classes perform better. It gave him time to give each and every one of them the special attention they deserved, he repeated about two or three times an hour.

And so, the first of December came, with the class size showing no signs of regaining its previous numbers. Two weeks was an awful long time for people to be sick, Arnold had thought, but then Principal Wartz had explained that this flu was particularly nasty and hard to overcome. According to Helga, Phoebe still had to make daily trips to the doctor, who was monitoring her condition like a hawk. Arnold himself made daily pilgrimages to Gerald's house to bring him his homework.

"Can you believe this house?" Gerald had said one day, as he lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. According to their family doctor, Gerald was sick more with one persistent cold than anything, and thus his nose was stuffed up and tissues littered the floor of his room. "I can't ever get any rest to get better."

"GERALD, GERALD, GERALD!!!" Arnold had moved aside as Timberly came rushing into the room and had landed, smack! Right on top of her big brother. "Are you feeling any better? I made you a card at school today, see, see?" Timberly had shoved a drawing under his nose, but Gerald had to roll over to keep from coughing on her.

"Get offa me, Timberly!" His sister was dumped unceremoniously on the floor and her lower lip began to tremble.

"_MOM!_" She raced from the room. "_MOM, GERALD'S BEING MEAN AGAIN!_" She shrieked loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. Arnold had heard Gerald sigh as he buried his face in his pillow.

"See what I mean? Between my mom in the morning trying to be all motherly and thus incredibly annoying and Timberly in the afternoon, I have no time for peace and rest!" Gerald had said, his voice muffled slightly by his pillow. "But thanks for bringing me my homework, even though I really wish you hadn't. There's no way I can focus on school right now."

"That's okay. I'm not blaming you for being sick." Gerald had sighed at that.

"So anything interesting happen at school today?" He'd asked while lifting his face from the pillow and looking over at Arnold, who'd shrugged.

"Define interesting. More and more people are getting sick, if that's what you mean."

"Man, what about the game? I can't believe this had to happen right now . . ."

"About that, Wolfgang called it off on account that he's sick too. One of his lackeys said something about him wanting to have his whole team there when they kick our butts." Arnold and Gerald had shared a grin.

"Finally some good news. Anything else? What have we been doing, anyway?"

"Ah, Arnold, what're you doing up here?" Before Arnold could answer Gerald, an older woman's voice interrupted their conversation. He turned and saw Gerald's mother standing in the doorway. "I appreciate you bringing Gerald his schoolwork, but we can't have you coming up here. What if you get sick as well?"

"Aw, but Mom . . ."

"No buts, Gerald. Now, come on, Arnold. Let's leave him to get some rest." She put a hand on his shoulder gently and steered him out of the room. "I'll be back in a minute with your medicine, Gerald. Don't go thinking you've escaped taking it." Arnold had grinned as Gerald had rolled his eyes.

"See you later, Gerald. Hope you feel better soon."

The next day at school, Mr. Simmons finally returned to them their book reports. He claimed that the reason he'd taken so long in grading them was because of the recent events and all the sudden sicknesses. Rumor had it that the flu was spreading through the staff as well, and a couple of the PE teachers and the music teacher were sick with a cough and a cold.

"Now I know each and every one of you as been practicing so very hard on your presentations, so I'm going to start them this afternoon, once I'm done handing them out." Mr. Simmons said as he passed back their papers. "And Helga, I'm really looking forward to your presentation. You read one of my favorite books of all time!" He handed her the book report, and she took it without a sneer or a snide remark.

"Sure, Mr. Simmons." Was all she said before returning to writing in that journal of hers. Arnold blinked a bit as he took his book report from Mr. Simmons' outstretched hand. Something had been up with Helga lately, and he couldn't put a finger on it. She hadn't tormented anyone for the entire week and had said as little as possible. Could it be that not having Phoebe constantly at her side had made her act this way? Arnold could only speculate.

"Hey, Helga! What's with you lately?" Sid asked, once again voicing the collective question. She looked up from her notebook blankly. "You've barely said a word to anyone and most of the time you're off in your own little world. You're not sick too, are you?" She heaved a little sigh before answering.

"I just don't have the energy to pester you jerks like I normally do." She said and then returned to writing.

"All right, class, let's have your presentations! Does anyone want to go first?" Mr. Simmons said as he moved to stand at the front of the room. The class was suddenly as quiet as a tomb and no one moved for fear of being picked to go. Mr. Simmons frowned and Arnold suppressed a sigh. He might as well get this over with now.

"I'll go."

"Wonderful, Arnold! I'll tell you when to start." Mr. Simmons moved and sat at his desk while Arnold came up to stand before everyone. He drew a deep breath and looked at his teacher for his signal. Mr. Simmons' gaze was fixed on the clock, and after a moment, he nodded to Arnold.

"I read the book _Island of the Blue Dolphins _which is about this Native American girl who gets stranded with her younger brother on her island after her family leaves for the mainland. It's a story about her survival on her own, because her brother is killed by this pack of wild dogs. It stresses self-reliance, but the sadness and hardships of being alone. The reason we read it is because it's a good book and . . ."

After Arnold's five minutes were up, the class applauded politely and began to ask questions. As he took his seat, Arnold wondered how he'd managed to blither on and on for five minutes; when he'd practiced with Gerald, he'd barely been able to talk about the book for three. Sure, it had been a good read, but how much was there that he could say about it?

A few more people went up to talk about their books, Eugene with his book based on the musical _Cats_, Curly with his book on how to make pencils, and Stinky with his book on farming in the big city. Arnold tried extremely hard to pay attention, but as Stinky continued to drawl on and on about the proper way to hoe a backyard, Arnold felt like banging his head against the wall. Hadn't Mr. Simmons had approve their books before hand? Arnold had been under the impression that they'd had to read historical fiction, not 'how to make a pencil eraser, five easy steps', or 'how to plant yer pumpernickel'.

"Uh, thank you Stinky, for that unique book report." Mr. Simmons said as the class gave him a dull applause. Stinky bowed and took his seat. "I certainly learned some valuable things; like the proper time to plant my tomatoes. Now let's see . . . how about Helga?" Arnold smiled a little; it had been clear that Mr. Simmons had been dying to pick her, but had forced some restraint to make it seem like he wasn't playing favorites.

"All right." She said and stood after closing her notebook and picking up her book report. She walked to the front of the classroom slowly and turned to stand infront of the class, her face holding neither a smile nor a scowl. It was as though she had no capacity for emotion at all, and it was beginning to worry Arnold. Hadn't she gotten like this once before? As she looked over at Mr. Simmons for her cue, Arnold began to wrack his brain for the elusive memory.

"And . . ." Helga looked away from Mr. Simmons as he leaned forward in his chair, his whole demeanor screaming anticipation. Arnold however, frowned at Helga. Her face had paled slightly and she'd begun to rock back and forth on her heels a little. "There, go!"

There was a long moment of silence as Helga stared off into space blankly, the whole class focused on her in wonder. She blinked slowly, her body still rocking back and forth gently, and suddenly her eyes rolled upwards and she fell over backwards.

"Helga!" Someone yelled as she landed on her back with a small thump. The whole class was on its feet and they clustered near the front of the room, trying to see what had happened to her. Arnold, being in the front row, had managed to get to her side before anyone else. He knelt down beside her, unsure of what to do.

"My gosh, is she all right? Arnold, check her pulse!" Mr. Simmons said, his face peering over the heads of his students. "Everyone, just calm down and give her some room!" He pushed his way through and did his best to get people to back off a little. Arnold picked up Helga's wrist and placed two fingers on the underside, searching for her heartbeat. With a surge of relief, he found it.

"She's not dead, Mr. Simmons. I think she just fainted." Arnold heard his teacher breathe a very loud sigh of relief. "Could someone bring me a glass of water?" He called as he touched her forehead. Sure enough, it was burning.

"Here you go, Arnold." Eugene said as he handed him a styrofoam cup of water. "What're you going to use it for?"

"This." After muttering a mental plea for his safety and his life, he tipped the contents of the cup onto Helga's face. The whole class gasped but Helga moaned slightly and her eyes fluttered open. She blinked up at Arnold, her expression foggy and unfocused.

"Ugh . . . football . . . head?" She murmured and Arnold helped her sit up. "What . . . what happened? How'd I get on the floor?"

"You collapsed, Helga. Does anything hurt?" He asked as she blinked a little and rubbed her eyes.

"Well, duh, Arnoldo. My head is killing me." She said as she struggled to her feet. "Oh yuck, how'd I get all wet?" Arnold couldn't help but smile a little; the Helga they all knew was back.

"I dumped a glass of water on you to wake you up." He said before turning to Mr. Simmons. "I think Helga needs to see the nurse. I noticed she had a fever."

"I do NOT have a fever, football head. For your information, I feel fine." Helga retorted angrily, but Arnold ignored her. He kept his attention on Mr. Simmons, who bit his lip slightly and nodded.

"I agree with Arnold, Helga. If you've just fainted, you really ought to go down to the nurse's office." Mr. Simmons said and Helga's jaw dropped. "Arnold, would you mind escorting her? I don't want to have her collapse in the halls or something."

"Mr. Simmons, I can take care of myself! I don't need hair boy here to walk me to . . . to . . ." She trailed off and began to sway a little back and forth. Arnold reached out and grabbed her arm to steady her and she shook her head slightly. "To . . . walk me . . . ugh . . . "

"Come on, Helga. Give it up already, and let's go."

They spent quite a while in the nurse's office, due to the fact that she'd been out on her lunch break when they'd gotten there. Helga had lain down on the bed in the office and had draped an arm over her face while Arnold had snagged a chair to sit in. She'd given him a funny look then and had asked him why he bothered staying. It was his duty, he'd said, earning himself a smirk from Helga. Besides, he'd added, staying in the nurse's office beat having to listen to any more book reports.

"And here I was thinking that I'd been the only one to notice that all three of them had selected the wrong type of book." She'd said with a small laugh. "I couldn't believe Simmons actually let them do their reports on 'how to' books, but then again, he's big on personal expression, isn't he."

"How's that relate to the books Stinky and Curly chose?"

"Oh, I don't know, football head. My mind feels like someone's put it in a blender, so don't try and understand me right now, okay?"

"Whatever you say, Helga."

After a few moments, Arnold began to look around the office. He'd only been in here once before, and that was with Gerald, who'd been so sick that Arnold had never had time to look around. The nurse's office was essentially one big room divided into two by a wall with a door. The front room had a small sofa and coffee table, with the nurse's office desk on the opposite side. Arnold supposed it resembled a waiting room. The second room, the one he was in now, was clearly for sick students. It had two small beds separated by a thin blue curtain and a counter running along the opposite wall with cabinets for medicine and tools the nurse might need. It was all very spotless and neat, and Arnold supposed that it was the most well kept place in the school.

An hour passed with Helga nodding off a little and Arnold flipping through the magazines that had been sitting on a little table in the corner. When she'd finally walked in, the nurse had screamed in shock, scaring both Arnold and Helga half to death. Apparently she hadn't expected to see children in her office and it had startled her.

"What's she trying to do, kill me? Yeesh!" Helga muttered as she picked herself up from the floor. She'd tumbled off of it in shock while Arnold had leapt to his 

feet and was now trying to regain control of his racing heart.

"I suppose we have another sick child." The nurse said, her voice tired as she plopped into a small stool on wheels. Arnold had been tempted to take it when they'd first come in, but he'd had a hunch that she was the one who used it, and had decided against it. "I'll take your temperature and then you can call home all right?" She opened a drawer as she spoke and pulled out a digital thermometer. She placed a plastic cover on it, pushed the button, and then stuck it under Helga's tongue. "And why are you here? Are you sick as well?"

"Uh . . ." Arnold blinked slightly but then shook his head. "She collapsed in the middle of class, so I brought her here."

"Then you can go and call her parents for her. The list of student numbers is in that big blue binder." She said, pointing to a bookshelf beside her desk in the other room. "Do you see it?" She asked as Arnold got up and walked to where she'd pointed. "It should be near the top." Sure enough, there was the binder. Arnold pulled it down carefully and walked over to the phone with it.

__

Pataki . . . Pa-ta-ki . . . He thought as he thumbed through the giant binder. _McDermott, McDonnell, Moreno . . . Palo . . . ah ha! Pataki, Helga. Home phone number, parent's work number . . ._ He picked up the phone and dialed her home number. As he listened to the rings, he heard the beep of the thermometer from the other room.

"My, my . . . one hundred and one. No wonder you collapsed, little lady." The nurse's voice floated to him as the phone rang for the umpteenth time. "You really do need to go home. Here, let me give you some tylenol to take down the fever . . ."

"Ugh . . . hello?" Came a slurred female voice from the other end of the telephone as someone finally answered. "Pa . . . Pataki residence." There was a long yawn and Arnold blinked a little, surprised by the sudden voice.

"Um . . ." Arnold said, caught of guard. "Uh, hello, this is Helga's school calling about Helga." He said quickly and winced. That was smooth, he thought sarcastically.

"Hel . . . Helga? Who . . . who's that?" The sleepy voice murmured and Arnold frowned. What did she mean, who was Helga?

"Your daughter?" He prompted and there was a faint 'uh-huh' from the other end. "She's currently in the nurse's office because she has a fever. Would it be all right if she came home?" Arnold asked and there was a long silence. He couldn't help tapping his finger against the desk absently as he fought a sigh of impatience. "Hello? Are you still there?"

"Uh . . . who is this again? What do you want?" The voice asked, its tone confused and sleepy. "If you're selling something, I don't want it."

"No, no I'm not selling anything!" Arnold said, frustration beginning to creep into his voice. "I'm just trying to ask if your daughter, Helga, can come home because she's sick with a fever." There was a faint 'uh-huh' from the voice and Arnold waited.

"I . . . I have a daughter named . . . who? But Olga . . . Olga is in college. Why would she need to come home if she's sick?" Arnold stared at the phone in disbelief.

"No, not Olga, _Helga_. _Hel-ga_. H-E-L-G-A."

"Oh, oh _Helga!_ Why didn't you say so in the first place?" Arnold felt like banging his head on the desk. "Helga . . . yes, I know her." Arnold waited for a moment, but the silence began to drag out.

"Are you still there?" He finally asked. There was a startled snort, indicating that he'd just woken her up, or something. "So are you going to let Helga come home or not?"

"Huh? Oh, what? Helga? Whatever she wants to do is fine with me. Bye-bye now." There was a click and Arnold stared at the phone with a frown. Who . . . who in the world was that woman? Was that really Helga's mother? If she had been, what kind of mother doesn't even remember the name of her own daughter?

"So did you get a hold of her parents?" The nurse came into the room just as he hung up the phone. He nodded and carefully closed the big binder. "And is it all right for her to go home?"

"Yes, but no one is going to be able to pick her up. Her father is at work and her mom is going out on errands." Arnold lied as he began to put the binder back up on the bookshelf. Part of him felt a small pang of guilt at the lie, but Helga needed to go home and he wasn't about to try asking that woman for anything else. Just as he managed to put the binder back, he noticed the nurse was pursing her lips in thought. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"She can't exactly go home on her own in her current condition. She gets pretty dizzy if she tries to move much." Arnold shifted uncomfortably under the nurse's stare. "And if her parents can't come and get her . . . how does she normally get home?"

"By bus." There was a moment of silence and Arnold suddenly understood what the nurse was suggesting subtly. "I could walk her home if I have to." He said and the nurse nodded.

"That'll be fine. I'll write you a pass and the two of you can collect your things and be on your way."

It was about a half an hour by the time Arnold and Helga reached her home, and much to Arnold's dismay, Helga's condition was rapidly deteriorating. The movement of the bus had been making her sick, so they'd gotten off a few stops early and had walked the rest of the way, taking breaks often because Helga grew tired quickly. She almost fell once, but luckily Arnold had caught her. From that point on, Arnold had draped her arm over his shoulder, put his arm around her waist, and had ordered her to lean on him. She'd protested only a little bit, but most of her fire was gone, her determination and obstinacy slowly draining from her as she struggled to remain conscious.

"You didn't have to do this, you know." She'd said after a while as they had neared her block. "You could've just stayed at school."

"I know, but I didn't." He looked up at her and felt a pang of worry as he noticed her eyes were glazing over. "Stay with me, Helga. If you collapse here, you know I won't be able to carry you. I'm just not strong enough." She'd smirked at that and had shaken the look from her eyes.

"Plus it would be extremely embarrassing for me . . ." She'd said and they'd continued onward to her house.

"It should be unlocked . . ." She murmured as they reached her door and sure enough, she opened it without having to dig for her key. They walked inside and Arnold couldn't help but look around curiously. He'd only been to her house a few times and he'd never managed to take in everything. "Miriam, I'm home!" She called and there came a sleepy grunt from the kitchen.

"Ol . . . Olga?" Arnold heard the same voice as on the phone call from the kitchen and he could hear footsteps on the linoleum. "Olga, shouldn't you be in college? What are you doing home?" Arnold heard Helga sigh as a petite, middle aged woman appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. She blinked a little behind her glasses when she saw Helga.

"No, Miriam, it's Helga. Olga is still in school, remember?" The blonde woman stared a little more and then she nodded and yawned.

"That's right, that's right. Call me if you need anything." And with that, she disappeared back into the kitchen. Arnold heard Helga sigh again.

"Crimeny, this family is pathetic." He heard her mutter before she removed her arm from around his shoulders. "I can take it from here . . ." But she began to wobble again and Arnold instinctively reached out to steady her. "Guess I spoke too soon."

"Come on, I'll help you upstairs, okay? Then you can get into bed and I'll . . . I'll make you some soup or something." He draped her arm around him for the second time and the two started up the stairs to her bedroom. It always shocked him to see how pink and girly her room was, seeing as how she . . . well, was sort of a tomboy. Sure, she wore the pink jumper and the pink bow, but no one thought of her as a girly girl. She was Helga, after all. Helga G. Pataki, their class's bully.

"I'll get you some tea and some soup, okay? That's what Grandma makes me when I'm sick." He said as she sat down on the edge of her bed. "Wait right here, okay?" She smirked, but there was no anger, no malice, nothing. In fact, it seemed . . . perhaps a little friendly.

"Where else would I go?" She joked weakly as Arnold went downstairs to see what he could make for her.

A little bit later, Arnold returned upstairs with a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a cup of hot lemon tea. It'd taken him a while to find everything he'd needed, and Miriam hadn't been much help, seeing as how she'd been passed out with her head on the table and several cans of smoothies around her. Arnold eased open the door to Helga's room, and found her sitting on her bed in a long purple nightgown and her hair out of their pigtails for once. She'd just crawled beneath the covers when she noticed him.

"I thought you'd left already." She said as she sat up slightly and he set the tray of soup and tea before her. She stared at it with wide eyes. "I . . . I didn't think you'd actually do this."

"I said I would, didn't I?" She nodded a little and he reached over and nudged the spoon. "I haven't poisoned it, Helga." She bit her lip, but picked up the spoon and began to eat the soup. "Where do you keep stuff like motrin and tylenol? I'll get you some for you to take."

"In the medicine cabinet above the sink in the bathroom. But I just took some from the nurse, so I'll have to wait a while before I take any more." She said quickly, as though to stop him from getting it for her.

"I'll just get it, okay? That way you'll have it when you need it."

A few minutes later, Arnold returned with two small bottles, one motrin and one tylenol. He set them on Helga's bedside table and noticed that she'd finished the soup in his absence. He gave her a small smile as she stirred her tea a little and then took several small sips.

"Is it still too hot?" She nodded as he took away the bowl and tray. "I'll go get some ice for it." Just before he left the room, he noticed her hands tightened around the mug of tea, but he didn't ask her what was wrong. "I'll be right back, okay?"

"Arnold . . ." It always startled him when she used his real name instead of the many nicknames she had for him. He stopped in mid-stride and turned back to her. She was looking up at him, her expression a combination of so many different emotions that it was somewhat . . . unnerving, perhaps? Arnold couldn't put a finger on how it made him feel.

"I'm serious, Arnold, you don't have to do all this for me." She said softly and their gazes met. As he looked into her deep blue eyes, Arnold finally placed the strongest emotion that had been reaching out to him. It was sadness. Sadness with all its pain and torment, sadness so very, very deep that Arnold felt he could be lost in it.

"Yes I do." He said after a moment and set the tray down before walking back to her and sitting down beside her.

"No, you don't. I don't want to keep you here." They shared another long look and Arnold shook his head.

"I do have to stay, Helga, at least until the woman downstairs regains enough consciousness to understand that her daughter is sick." He placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently. "I'll get you that ice, all right?" She pressed her lips together, but nodded slowly. "Good." And with that, he stood and picked up the tray.

"Arnold." He blinked and turned back to her for the second time. As he turned, he watched a faint smile grow on her face, but this smile was different than her usual one. It was the one she used when she truly meant whatever was behind it. "I wanted to say . . . thank you." It was rare to hear any kind of gratitude from Helga, but it was those rare moments like this one that made Arnold happy.

"You're welcome, Helga. I'm sure you'd do the same for me." He said as he returned her smile and then walked out of the room. As he descended the stairs to the kitchen, Arnold burned that smile into his memory. It was proof, he told himself. It was proof that a kinder, gentler Helga G. Pataki did indeed exist. Now if he could only figure out why she stayed hidden . . .

*~*~*

Woo, there's chapter two! Aw, isn't Arnold sweet? I wish a guy would do that for me, but I don't know anyone who is half as decent as Arnold. Isn't it a shame that only the cartoon guys are the better than the real ones? Oops, I hope that doesn't offend anyone out there, but seriously! You should come to my school and see the pathetic selection we girls have. They're all either pot heads or only interested in . . . other things.

Sorry for getting off topic there . . . heh ^^; Hope this answers any questions you had about Phoebe or anyone else for that matter, and I'm sorry if people are seriously out of character. I'm trying my best here! Don't kill me! Well, is this sickness going to keep spreading? Or has it reached its limit? We shall see in chapter three! (oops, that rhymed . . . ah well.)

Love forever and ever:

pottergal


	3. Grandpa and Arnold

Hey there, everyone! It's pottergal back with the long awaited third chapter. Hope everyone's enjoying it, and here we go! Oh yeah, and in order to get a greater variety of reviews, I've come up with a set of questions for people to answer as they read. Answer for each chapter if you remember, because I want to know what you thought!

Okay, so here's the list.

1) What's your favorite part of the chapter? And why! This doesn't have to be long, and it can be for whatever reason. It made you laugh, cry, etc. etc.

2) What do you think could be improved on in the chapter? If you can't think of anything, you don't have to answer.

3) What do you think is going to happen next? (He, he, I love these ones! You guys come up with the most creative ideas.)

If you want, I'll put this again at the end, since this is sort of a long chapter. Well, that's all for now!

Love forever and ever:

pottergal

PS. Disclaimers STILL apply and I don't own HA!

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A Rainy December

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Chapter Three: Grandpa and Arnold

By: pottergal

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Two weeks passed and Christmas time was getting closer by the minute. Decorations had long since popped up everywhere in their neighborhood, with Mr. Green and all the other shop owners going full out with their designs and Christmas lights. That weekend after he'd visited Gerald, Arnold had spent his time decorating the boarding house with his grandparents. They'd bought their tree rather early this year, and all the boarders had contributed to the ornaments. After they'd placed the tree topper on and turned on the lights, Arnold couldn't help glowing from the inside with joy. He loved Christmas to death.

It began snowing as well, blanketing the whole city in a thick white sheet. When Arnold now walked to school in the morning, he wore his boots, his gloves, and about two layers of clothes just to keep from freezing. People starting bringing sleds and saucers to school to play with during recess and lunch, and snow ball fights were common occurrences. Arnold, Sid, and Stinky had creamed a third grade team one day after school, and all of them avoided the fifth graders like the plague. No one wanted to even tempt fate and wind up with their pants full of snow.

So the two weeks had passed, and still the class remained rather empty. Gerald still was hacking and coughing, and only recently had the x-rays shown that he had a mild case of pneumonia. Phoebe, however, was sicker than everyone combined. She was the one with full-blown pneumonia, and no one outside her family was allowed to see her. Much to Arnold's disappointment, there had been no word about Lila. It seemed as though she'd just fallen off the face of the earth, or something.

It was the start of the third week of December, with the end of school for that year rapidly approaching. As Arnold took his seat on the bus, he sighed slightly when he saw Gerald _still_ wasn't there. But then again, his mother had said that her son probably wouldn't be back at school until after the New Year. He'd seen her come to school the other day, like a few other parents, to get homework and make-up assignments for their children. Helga's parents, Arnold noted with a bit of annoyance, hadn't shown up. Didn't they care about their daughter at all? He'd wondered before reminding himself that it wasn't his place to interfere with Helga's home life.

He'd made exceptions before, but generally he tried to leave families alone. After he'd helped, for some reason they just made him . . . well, so . . . _jealous_ when they looked happy. It had wrenched his heart every time he saw parents and their child restored to their previous level of joy, such as Mr. Hyunh and his daughter, or the billionaire and his son, Allen. After he'd get home from those escapades, he'd shut the door to his room and sink down to the floor, sick to his soul with longing for the mother and father he'd never have. 

Of course he always did his best to suppress these emotions. Who was he to feel jealous when he should be happy for the things he'd done? So he always shut it away and put on a small smile for all to see and think nothing was bothering him. Normally Arnold was pretty honest about his feelings, but for some reason he could never voice these ones. It filled him with shame sometimes, to think he still was dwelling on a past that he couldn't change, and thus the core of Arnold's emotions remained locked inside.

The bus stopped infront of the school and all the students leaped from the vehicle to make a mad dash for the school. It was bitterly cold outside and few wanted to remain with the stinging wind and the biting iciness. Arnold slipped into the main hall of PS 118 and much to his surprise, he saw Rhonda, Sheena, and Nadine all hovering about a locker. They looked slightly pale, but other than that, they seemed their giggling, normal selves.

__

I wonder if Harold is back . . . Arnold thought as he went to his locker and dropped off his books. He then proceeded to change his shoes and remove a few of his outer layers. Now that he was inside where it was warm, all the excess clothing was downright stifling.

"Hey, Arnold! Guess who I just saw!" Sid and Stinky came rushing up to him as he picked out a few different books and shut his locker. "Harold is back!"

"I figured as much. I just saw Rhonda and her group." He answered as they started for their classroom. "Any other people you spotted? I know Gerald and Phoebe aren't going to be back until next year, but what about Helga? Or Lila?" He said the redhead's name last; he didn't want to seem too concerned about her . . . at least not infront of Stinky and Sid.

"I reckon I heard Lila's grandma up and died and she and her pa had to head out for her funeral." Stinky said as Sid opened the door to their classroom and shock rippled through Arnold. "Course that's just a rumor, and we've got no way to tell if it's true or not."

"_Helga?_" Sid practically shouted, stopping any response Arnold had to Stinky's comment. Sure enough, the blonde girl sat in her customary seat, her head resting on her arms, which were folded on top her desk. She was wearing a thick, cream-colored turtleneck sweater and a pair of jeans, which was slightly more surprising than her being there in the first place. Her hair for once wasn't in the pigtails; instead it had been drawn into a small braid with her pink bow tying off the end.

"Why don't you take a picture, it'll last longer." She said with her customary smirk and scowl.

"What . . . what happened to you?" Sid stuttered. "Did your mommy quit dressing you?" Helga's scowl deepened as Sid spoke in a sing-song sort of way. "Or did you finally develop some fashion sense?"

"Shut up already, Sid, before I make you eat those words." She growled and Sid shut his mouth with a click. He and Stinky shared a look before slinking off to their seats quickly. She then turned her attention to Arnold, but he smiled gently and watched her scowl falter a bit. "What's so funny, football head?" She sneered and he couldn't stop his smile from widening a little.

"I see you're feeling better." He took his seat beside her and she waved her hand in dismissal.

"I lucked out and only got sick with a little cold. Thanks to my dad's money, I managed to get a decent doctor to look at me and give me the proper medicine to make me well quick." She said before yawning. "I'm still not feeling one hundred percent better, but I felt well enough to drag my butt to school. And after being stuck in that house, anything would be a welcome change."

"Even if you were stuck in the desert, without water?"

"Hey, you haven't been there when Miriam forgets to buy groceries." She said as more people began to file into the classroom, their expressions changing quickly to shock when they saw Helga's new outfit. Arnold smiled a little more and tucked his books away in his desk for now. "Then you may as well be stuck in the desert, hair boy."

"Without water?"

"Without water, football head."

It was nice, believe it or not, to have Helga back at school. For some reason, it had seemed to Arnold that no one was ever going to get any better, what with the reports on Gerald and Phoebe being so negative. Having Helga back gave him hope that they would emerge all right and actually be back after the New Year like their doctors had said they would be.

During recess and lunch, Arnold had remained in doors with Helga and had talked to her about the assignments she'd missed. Mr. Simmons had asked Arnold to tutor her a bit in the math and grammar lessons that she'd been gone for, and he'd been happy to oblige. Arnold would do anything that gave him the excuse not to have to get all bundled up until the end of the day.

As recess and lunch had dragged on, Arnold had found himself happy that Helga was a fast learner. Not once did he have to repeat himself and Helga breezed through pretty much every class assignment in a matter of minutes. It's all the same thing over and over, she'd said when he'd stared at her. What was so hard about finding the pattern and using it?

Mr. Simmons also allowed her to make up several quizzes that she'd missed, and again, she plowed through them like they were nothing. Much to Arnold's amazement, she made few mistakes. Once they were done with everything Mr. Simmons had set aside for her to do, Arnold finally asked what had prompted her to change her style.

"Oh, I don't know, football head. I guess I was just getting sick of pink." She said as she set her papers on Mr. Simmons desk for him. "Mostly it has to do with Christmas coming up and so I got a bunch of new clothes. This outfit is from Olga; she said she thought it'd look just so adorable on me." There was a touch of bitterness to her voice that Arnold couldn't let go of.

"You mean you opened your presents already?" He asked in disbelief.

"Well, duh, football head. Why else would I be wearing this getup?" She snapped slightly. "We never wait until Christmas. Half the time I've snooped and found out long before, and Bob can't ever wait as it gets closer." She sighed a little. "Besides, Christmas is such a superficial holiday anyway. It has no meaning anymore."

"That's not true, Helga." He said defensively and she crossed her arms over her chest.

"So now you're going to feed me the real story behind Christmas with all that junk about family and giving?" She said with her sneer. "Stop wasting your time, football head, and give it a rest. Your little sermons long stopped meaning anything to me, and Christmas hasn't ever been about family for me, nor has it been about giving. That whole tale about the holidays being the happiest time of the year is so surreal that it's sickening."

"How could you say something like that? Christmas is a time for everyone to get together. It is a time of joy, Helga." They engaged in a drawn out staring contest and Helga finally rolled her eyes.

"Maybe for you, Arnoldo, and your lovely little fantasy life, but the rest of us live in the real world." She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "And the most of the real world isn't ever happy during Christmas." With that, she turned on her heel and walked out of the classroom, leaving Arnold to his sudden frustrated jumble of thoughts.

"I do not live in a fantasy life." He whispered to the empty classroom, somewhat petulantly, but it didn't mean anything. Helga wasn't there to hear it.

Over the next couple of days, Helga's general outfit returned more to normal, but the pigtails didn't return and she started wearing pants. When Rhonda had asked her why the sudden change in fashion, she'd replied curtly that it was none of her business, but since she was so nosey, it was because her new clothes were warmer. Helga's bullying was back in full force as well, and Arnold found himself wondering why he ever was glad that she'd come back, especially after the fifteenth spitball bounced off the back of his head.

"Helga, would you cut it out?" He finally yelled at her and got a sullen stare.

"What are you talking about, Arnoldo? I'm just sitting here." He snorted softly as their glaring contest continued for a little longer, but he finally sighed angrily and returned to his class work. "Stupid football head, what does he think I've been doing?" He heard her mutter as she went back to her previous activity and he fought another angry glare.

Yes, Helga's torture was back in full force. Younger students found themselves subject to both her pranks and her painfully hard snowballs, and little huddles of second graders could be seen in the hallways; clearly they thought that if they traveled in packs that they'd be less vulnerable. Arnold was having a particularly hard time, being that he was Helga's favorite target. He was pelted with spitballs and snowballs and it seemed like anything Helga could get her hands on, and without Gerald there to tell him to calm down, it really began to get to Arnold. As he rounded a corner of the hallway, he barely avoided being sprayed with a bucket of water and he grit his teeth in frustration.

"HELGA!" He yelled as he looked around for her. "I _thought_ I asked you to . . ." But to his surprise, it was Timberly and a couple of her first grade friends. She blinked up at him in confusion, and Arnold muttered a hasty apology before hurrying away. The last thing he wanted right now was to be roped into a first grader game.

__

Whap! A snowball came out of nowhere and smacked Arnold in the back of his head, knocking off his hat. He blinked in surprise for a moment, before spinning around in sudden anger to catch his tormenter in the act. However, the hall was completely devoid of all people. Picking up his hat, he put it back on his head and stomped off to his classroom, the place he knew he'd find her.

"_Helga!_" He shouted for the umpteenth time that day as he threw open the door and stamped into the heated room. All the giggling and conversations stopped as surprised attention shifted to a very angry Arnold, one who had had quite enough of the class bully. The girl blinked at him in confusion; she'd been in the middle of a conversation with Sid and Stinky.

"What's eating you, football head?" She said, a defiant tone to her voice as he glared at her.

"You!" He shouted and Helga blinked a little. "You're driving me crazy with all your stupid, childish, idiotic little pranks! You've hit me with snow and spit and paper, and I'm sick of it!" The snow from the snowball had begun to melt and was slowly dribbling down the back of Arnold's neck; he hadn't bothered to brush it off because he'd been so preoccupied with getting to Helga.

"So? There's nothing you can do about it, football head, so I suggest you just deal with it." She said, scowling at him. He felt his fists clench as his gaze narrowed and she leaned back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest. "You haven't gotten any proof that it was me, any ways. I've been with Sid and Stinky here all lunch. So how could I have hit you with a snowball? Hm?"

"I know you, Helga, and you did it." He said, his voice lowering an octave with anger. "Who else would do it? No one else seems to have a grudge against me."

"Of course not, you're Mr. Perfect." She quipped and Arnold felt a muscle in his cheek twitch slightly. "Everyone just simply adores you, Arnold. Who in their right mind would want to hit _you_ with a snowball? You, with your wonderful life and the way everything just always happens to go your way. Ever notice that you rarely make mistakes?" He blinked in confusion, her argument throwing him off.

"If this is some stupid . . . _bitterness_, Helga, why don't you just say something? Why do you have to keep with these stupid tricks?" She glared at him in silence and after a moment, he spoke. "What happened to your nice attitude? Can't you ever be honestly friendly at all?"

"What are you talking about, Arnoldo? Nice is for wimps, people who get the living daylights beat out of them on a daily basis." A small sneer made her lips curl. "People like . . . like you, football head."

"What makes you say that, Helga?" He retorted. "I'm not beat up on a daily basis. And you know what, for all your dumb spitballs and snowballs, you've never laid a finger on me." That one seemed to unnerve her a little, so he decided to press it. "You know what I think, Helga?" She stared at him sullenly. "I think you really can't beat anyone up." Her eyes widened and the class drew a sharp breath. Arnold continued on, undaunted. "Sure, you shake your fist a lot, but I haven't seen you hit anyone."

"You're not with me every waking minute, Arnoldo. How would you know?" She growled and stood slowly to glare down at him. Inwardly, Arnold began to rethink his decision, but the majority of himself forced his resolve to remain firm. "Can't seem to answer that one, can you? I repeat, football head, _how would you know?_"

"I would've heard something, at least." He kept his voice steady and his gaze cool. Outwardly he looked calm and collected, unfazed by the furious girl scowling at him. But inwardly . . . a small part of him was begging for his life. "All you've done is threaten and wave around 'Ol' Betsy'. Isn't that right, Helga?" He folded his arms over his chest and from the corner of his eye, he watched her fists clench.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I don't?" Arnold said as their gazes locked. "I think that I do. All you've done is wave your fist around."

"Are you going to let him talk to you like that, Helga?" Someone whispered and Arnold didn't put the face to the voice. He was too busy watching Helga's glare darken. "Are you?"

"What proof is there to make me think she'd actually hit me?" Arnold said, glancing around the class for a moment. He then turned his attention back to Helga. "You know, for all these years, I was honestly afraid of you sometimes. But now that I think about it, it's stupid. You've never hurt someone, outside of pester them with stupid little pranks."

"You think so?"

"I do." He said firmly and their gazes narrowed as they glared.

"Really."

"You wouldn't hit me. I know it."

A few hours later, Arnold walked through the snow on his way home to the boarding house, all bundled up in the scarf, the jackets, the boots, the gloves, and the thick beanie. As he walked he kicked absently at small piles to work off some of his frustrations. He couldn't believe she'd actually done it; Helga had actually punched him as hard as she could.

She'd punched him in his stomach, knocking all the wind from him and leaving him dazed for a bit. Everyone had pretty much stayed away from both her and Arnold, fearing Helga and her wrath. No one dared to tell Mr. Simmons, and so she'd gotten off scot-free. But Arnold wasn't about to be a tattletale, because then he'd have to say why she'd punched him, and now that he thought about it, he had given her a very good reason.

__

I was being a bit of a jerk . . . but still! She didn't have to punch me so hard. He thought and rubbed his middle to comfort the dull ache that still remained. _I bet I have a bruise there now, or something._ He kicked at another patch of snow. This afternoon, he'd chosen to walk home instead of taking the bus. It took longer, but he didn't have to sit in the same vicinity as Helga that way. He could walk home in peace and quiet.

The loud sound of a siren broke Arnold out of his thoughts. He looked up in time to see an ambulance race past, its lights flashing and its siren blaring as loud as it could. For a moment he wondered where it was headed, but after it faded into the distance, it faded from his thoughts as well. Maybe there was an accident, or maybe a kid had hurt himself doing something stupid. Either way, Arnold didn't give it much thought.

With Christmas drawing closer by the second, Arnold was glad that he'd done his shopping long before the rush. The only person he had left to shop for was Grandpa, but that was because he could never figure out what to get the old man. Everyone else had been easy, but his grandfather changed his mind so many times that he was close to impossible to shop for. Arnold always wound up heading out Christmas Eve and buying the first thing that caught his eye, and almost always it was perfect, so he wasn't that worried.

__

It's just too bad that everyone's going somewhere this Christmas. All of the boarders had either been invited back home or had booked a romantic vacation with their significant other. Arnold knew that Mr. Potts and his girlfriend Lola were heading back east to visit her parents. Mr. Hyunh had left a couple of days ago with his daughter for California; they were going to meet his parents who were flying in from Vietnam. Arnold also knew that Susie and Oskar were leaving this morning to go and visit Susie's parents, much to Oskar's disappointment. Arnold almost felt sorry for the rat; spending the holidays with in-laws who hated him didn't sound like too much fun.

It was going to seem so . . . _empty_ without the morning traffic jam to the bathroom or the washing machine. All the boarders were going home for the holidays and Arnold couldn't even imagine the house without them. It seemed so cramped and tiny with all the people; what was it going to be like without them? The thought was close to terrifying, as Arnold had never been one to be for big changes.

__

It's going to be just me . . . Grandma . . . and Grandpa. Part of me can't believe it. He mused quietly as he turned the corner to his street. He kicked absently at another pile of snow, but then a flashing red light caught his eye. His jaw dropped and his heart stopped as he realized where the ambulance had gone; it was parked right out side the boarding house, with several police cars and a fire truck. 

__

Has there been an accident? He wondered as he drew closer to the crowd of onlookers surrounding the cars. But then he noticed something. The door to the boarding house was open.

"Oh no . . ." Fear raced through him in an instant as he began to push his way through the throng of people to get to the front. "Excuse me! I need to get through!" There were several cries of anger and surprise as he elbowed some people or stepped on their toes by accident. "Let me through, that's my house!" He finally made it to the front to see several police officers milling about to keep the crowd in check.

"Excuse me!" He called to the police officer closest.

"Yeah, kid? What da ya want?"

"Can I go inside? It's my house. What happened?" He asked in one breath and the officer blinked at him for a second. "Are Grandma and Grandpa okay?"

"You must be the short man that old guy was talking about."

"My name is Arnold." He said, but the officer ignored him.

"Hey, Murphy! It's the kid that lives with them! Can I let him in?" He called to another officer, one who was standing infront of the open door. He looked from the officer Arnold had spoken to and then to Arnold before shaking his head slightly.

"They'll be coming out in a second, so don't bother." Arnold couldn't help the glare that formed.

"But this is my house!"

"We can't have you getting in the way of the paramedics, kid, so you're just going to have to tough it." Murphy said before turning around to look inside the house. Arnold glared at the back of his head before looking at the first officer he'd spoken to.

"Can't you at least tell me what happened?" He asked with a note of plea in his voice and the officer nodded after a moment.

"You know old people are frail. One of them collapsed." The officer said simply and then moved to join his buddies. Arnold's eyes got as big as saucers; his grandparents were definitely not frail. Grandpa was strong as an ox while Grandma . . . Grandma was in a league of her own. She certainly wasn't normal in any way, shape or form, and she was even stronger than Grandpa was.

"Get everyone back! They're coming out!" All of the police officers converged on the crowd, pushing them back to ensure a clear path to the ambulance. Several paramedics came from inside the house and Arnold peered around the officer infront of him to see what was going on. After a moment, there was a grinding sound and soon he saw two paramedics walking down the steps from his house slowly, a stretcher between them.

"_Grandpa!_" Arnold shouted and pushed past the officers to get to his grandfather's side. Another arm stopped him just before he reached him, and he looked up to see a paramedic frowning down at him. "What's happened? Why is he on the stretcher?" Arnold demanded, his heart pounding in fear. He struggled to keep himself calm, but he couldn't help his voice from sounding slightly hysterical.

"The old man collapsed. We're taking him to the hospital as we speak and we're going to run some tests to figure out what's wrong with him." The medic said calmly and pressed his hand firmly against Arnold's shoulder. "I can't have you running up to him just yet. We need to get him into the ambulance." Arnold watched helplessly as the men pushed his grandfather past.

__

He looks . . . drugged . . . Arnold bit his lip in worry as he looked at Grandpa's face. His eyes were distant and glazed and they'd hooked him up to some kind of breathing apparatus. It magnified his breathing such that he sounded raspy and harsh. The men got him to the ambulance and a woman hopped out. She helped the man in front push the stretcher into the vehicle, the wheels folding up as they pushed it in.

"Will he be okay?" Arnold asked in a small voice and the paramedic squeezed his shoulder gently.

"I'm sure he'll be fine, kid. There's your grandma." Arnold tore his gaze from the depressing sight of his grandfather and saw his grandmother come to the door. For the first time in his entire life, Arnold saw her face look slightly frightened. The medic finally let go of his shoulder, and he raced up to her. The two met in a tight embrace and Arnold clung to her as tightly as he could.

"Grandma, what happened? Why'd he collapse?" He asked, but she didn't answer. She gave him one final squeeze before standing up to address the medic who'd walked up. Arnold slipped his hand into hers and he looked from her determined expression to the medic.

"Are you at least going to tell us where you're taking him?" She demanded in the sanest voice he'd heard out of her in a while. The medic nodded and handed her a piece of paper with an address and directions on it.

"This is the hospital. You're welcome to follow us if you want, but you won't be allowed to see him until he's been moved out of emergency." The paramedic said before nodding at both Grandma and Arnold and then walked back down the steps. He hopped into the passenger's side of the ambulance, which took off after a moment. The crowd, seeing that the show was over, slowly dispersed, leaving a few friends to express their condolences. Arnold barely heard any of them.

"Come on, Arnold." He looked up at his grandmother to see her tight-lipped expression relax slightly into a small smile. "Let's get the house tidied up a bit and then we'll go hunt down your grandfather." She led him gently into the house and shut the door with a small click, never once dropping his hand. Once the door was shut, she knelt slightly and drew him into another firm hug.

"I know this is quite a shock, Kimba." She said gently as he pressed his face to her bony shoulder and she then began to stroke his hair. "But you're a strong boy. Things will turn out just fine; I'm sure of it." He nodded silently and felt tears begin to sting the corner of his eyes. A horrible thought had just crossed his mind; what if they lost him? What if they lost Grandpa?

"You think Grandpa will be okay?" He whispered as he squeezed his eyes shut and felt his grandmother's hold on him tighten.

"You really depend on us a lot, don't you, Arnold." She said softly and he didn't answer. He was fighting the lump in his throat and the pricking sensation in his eyes. "Don't you worry one bit, Arnold. I'm sure Phil will be fine. He's always been a fighter, and he's always been strong. He won't let something like this hurt him." She said firmly and brought Arnold to look at her. She smiled and touched him under his chin.

"I know you're right, Grandma." He tried to smile back and she wiped away the few tears that had escaped his eyes with her thin fingers. "I know you're right."

"Good. Now let's get going, shall we?"

Arnold and Grandma spent the rest of the afternoon at the city hospital, asking the nurses if an old man had been moved from emergency at any recent time. They finally found someone who seemed to know anything, and she took them to a doctor who'd just got done dealing with Grandpa. The nurse left them and then the doctor led them to the room they'd put him in. Arnold almost couldn't walk in. He'd always hated hospitals with their sterile smell and people hooked up to machines, depending on them for their very lives. It frightened him to think that one day he might be that old and have to deal with tubes and wires and machines every single day.

"Arnold," his grandmother had said as they had walked to the room, "don't ever let me get like this. If I get too old to say anything, just put me out of my misery." He'd taken her hand again. "This isn't living at all." She'd whispered as they walked past a particularly old man who couldn't even sit up on his own.

"Grandma, please don't talk like that." She'd squeezed his hand, but never brought up the subject again.

Inside the room, they found Grandpa lying on a hospital bed, an IV in his arm connected to a fluid bag that hung above his head. He was unconscious, and the doctor explained that they'd given him a sedative while they'd run some tests. No bones were broken, as far as they could tell, and they had the lab running blood tests as they spoke. The doctor had just been about to go and examine the x-rays they'd taken, but she had wanted to show them to his room first.

"I'll be back soon with some results, okay?" The doctor said before smiling and walking from the room, leaving them alone with Grandpa. Arnold watched Grandma pull up a chair and sit down beside him, her expression worried. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it, but there was no response from him.

__

He hardly seems alive . . . Arnold thought with dread, his body wanting to flee from the sight before him. Not once had he seen his grandfather this . . . this vulnerable. He lay out silently, the sheet moving up and down slowly as he breathed.

"Now don't you worry one bit, Arnold." His grandmother held out her other hand to him and gestured for him to come closer. He inched forward reluctantly, drawing closer to the bed. He finally came up beside her and took her outstretched hand. "Phil is going to be just fine; he's strong as an ox, after all." She dropped his hand to slip it around his waist and pulled him into sort of a half hug.

"I know, Grandma." He said in a faint voice as he put his arm around her shoulder. Her hand tightened around him for a moment and he squeezed her shoulder in return. "I know you're right, Grandma. Grandpa is going to be fine. Just fine."

The next day, Arnold arrived early to school. Dark bags hung beneath his eyes, his clothing looked rather rumpled, and his hair looked only slightly combed. Truth be told, he'd spent the night at the hospital with Grandma as they'd waited for some news about his grandfather. The doctor had come back after a while and had told them that they needed to take some more x-rays, and by the time the doctor's shift was over, she'd been able to tell them that Phil had a mild case of pneumonia. She hadn't been surprised by this information; after all, she recalled that many people seemed to have it at that moment.

__

So Grandpa has pneumonia. They'd given him some medicine by adding it into his IV bag, but they'd said that they were going to need to keep him in the hospital since he was so old. Much to Arnold's surprise, Grandma hadn't objected. When he'd asked her about it, she said that she knew little about caring for truly sick people. She'd then decided to stay in the hospital with her husband, and since Arnold didn't want to go back to an empty boarding house, he elected to stay as well.

However, the amount of sleep that he'd gotten was minimal. The hum of the strange building combined with other unfamiliar creaks and the coughs of other patients had kept him up well into the wee hours of the morning. The more time that passed, the more Arnold came to hate hospitals. He didn't hate the good that they did, but the whole internal atmosphere scared him.

Since he'd gotten to school early, Arnold was of course the first one in the classroom. He turned on the heater before sitting down at his desk and putting his head down. In a matter of minutes he was fast asleep and he didn't awake until someone started shaking him. He bolted upright to see Mr. Simmons looking at him in concern.

"Did something happen, Arnold? You're never here this early." He asked in that compassionate voice of his and Arnold tried his best to smile. What good would it do, worrying people?

"I'm okay. My grandpa collapsed yesterday and so me and Grandma spent the night in the hospital with him. I can't sleep very well in a strange place, so I obviously I didn't sleep much in the hospital." Mr. Simmons nodded slowly and gently touched his shoulder.

"If you need to go home, I understand completely, Arnold. I know how hard it is to have some one you care for a lot in the hospital." And with those words, he turned and began to prepare his lessons for the day. Arnold watched him for a moment, but it wasn't long until he was asleep again and the bell was ringing, signaling the start of school.

Surprisingly enough, to Arnold anyway, the entire day was one big giant blur. He couldn't remember anything noteworthy about it, besides the fact that everyone seemed to be avoiding him, but that could also have to do with the fact that he wasn't talking to anyone. He remembered Sid and Stinky had tried to come up to him, but had walked in the opposite direction when they'd seen his expression. Every part of him must've been screaming 'leave me alone', he thought. Why else would people avoid him like the plague?

Once the school day was finally out, and there was only one day left until Christmas Break, Arnold decided to walk over to Gerald's house and see how he was doing. He hadn't brought over the homework in a while, since Gerald's mother had been coming to do that. But there was nothing wrong with a little visit, was there?

He reached Gerald's house and rang the doorbell. Gerald's mother opened the door and had blinked when she saw Arnold. She invited him in and made him a cup of hot chocolate before asking him what was wrong. Arnold re-told his story for the second time that day as he sipped the delicious cocoa; he couldn't remember if he'd eaten anything today or not. Once he finished, Gerald's mother sent him upstairs to visit.

"Hey, man, long time no see!" Gerald greeted him and they did their handshake. "You look awful. What happened? Helga came back and started picking on you again?" He asked as Arnold pulled up a chair and sat down.

"Well, she did, but that's not what's wrong." Arnold drew a deep breath and prepared to tell his story again. He could begin to understand why people could get sick of a question. "My grandpa collapsed yesterday, so we spent the night in the hospital. You know how much I hate them, so I didn't sleep much." Gerald whistled softly.

"He . . . collapsed? Man, your grandpa is usually strong as a bull. What happened?"

"The doctors say he's got pneumonia, even if it's only mild." Arnold said as he rubbed his eyes and rested his chin in his hands. His head was starting to pound for some reason; it must be from lack of sleep, he told himself. "I don't know, Gerald. It was scary to go there and see him like that."

"I understand, man. Nobody likes to be reminded of the less pretty things of life." Gerald said and Arnold smiled a bit. "So what else is going on? You haven't been by in a while. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me, or that my mom had banished you from our house."

"Actually it's more of the second one. She didn't want me getting sick, but she made an exception today, seeing as how you're sounding better than ever." Arnold said and Gerald nodded with a grin.

"Yeah, the medicine is finally starting to kick in. I feel better today than I have in a while. And I've finally stopped hacking."

Their conversation continued on for a while longer before Gerald's mom came in and politely kicked Arnold out. Of course he understood completely; Gerald still wasn't one hundred percent better just yet. So he said good-bye to Gerald and Timberly, who'd popped up after a while, and thanked Gerald's mother a second time for the hot chocolate before leaving.

As he walked down the streets back to the boarding house, Arnold felt as though his head had been wrapped in some strange bubble. All the sounds he heard were oddly muffled and sluggish, and things seemed to be moving in strange ways. Once he thought he saw a truck drive into a building, but upon closer inspection, it had just turned a corner.

__

Man, what is with me today? I can't seem to focus. He thought as he shook his head a bit. He stopped to look at his reflection in a storefront window and was surprised at how haunted and drawn his expression was. His eyes were wide and dark, with a look that did indeed say 'leave me alone'. Now he understood why people had been avoiding him; no one had been sure if he'd break down and start screaming at all of them.

__

Is Grandpa being in the hospital really affecting me that much? He wondered as his expression wavered slightly and he had to reach out and touch the window to steady himself. His hand balled into a fist and he pressed his forehead against it, his eyes squeezed shut. He drew a few deep breaths to get himself under control before he could open his eyes again and continue walking.

"Lord, what is wrong with me?" He muttered as he rubbed at his eyes and turned a corner, only to be knocked backwards as he ran into another person. He lay on his back, stunned for a moment, but a familiar voice rang out and he pushed himself up slowly.

"Ouch, watch where you're going next time!" Helga's voice snapped as she too pushed herself up onto her elbows. "Why were you in such a hurry . . ." She trailed off as she noticed who she'd run into. "I should've known; I never seem to hit anyone else, do I?" He heard her mutter and they struggled to their feet. "What's the rush, football head? Off to bed, or something?"

"Leave me alone, Helga." He retorted with a bit more animosity and hostility than he'd intended. "I'm not in the mood for your dumb attitude right now." He brushed off the snow before pushing past her. There was a moment of silence on her part as he walked away, but she called out to him and he stopped.

"Arnold!" She used his real name, which always made him stop dead. He turned to her slowly to see a concerned expression on her face. "I . . . I thought I should apologize for yesterday." She said as she took a small step towards him. "I . . . I really shouldn't have punched you. I . . . I just lost my cool and . . . well, you know the rest." She said as she rubbed the back of her arm nervously. He drew a deep breath and part of him felt better. That little incident must have been bothering him more than he'd realized.

"I forgive you, Helga. I shouldn't have been egging you on in the first place. I can understand why you did it, even if I do have a bruise there now." He joked weakly and watched her eyes grow wide.

"You do?" She squeaked and he shrugged.

"I haven't been home to check, so I wouldn't know. I spent last night in the hospital." She took another step closer to him and Arnold prepared himself to tell his story again. "You see . . ."

"It's okay, I know what happened. Mr. Simmons told me." Arnold blinked. "I asked why he was letting you nod off today during his lesson and he explained the whole situation." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Frankly, Arnoldo, I'm surprised you even showed up today. I certainly wouldn't have."

"That's you, Helga. You're not me." She rolled her eyes.

"Well that's obvious." She started talking about something, but Arnold found himself drifting away. He couldn't help it, but her voice slowly solidified into one long tone with no distinction between the words. Everything began to waver for the second time that day, Helga's image before him splitting to three or four different Helgas. Arnold felt as though everything around him had suddenly begun spinning, or that he'd been put on a merry-go-round whirling at top speeds.

"ARNOLD!" Helga's surprised shriek was the last thing he heard as everything went black.

*~*~*

Ooh, don't you just love me? What a place for a cliffhanger. What's going to happen to Grandpa, and especially, Arnold?? Well, you're just going to have to wait for the fourth chapter! Thanks to everyone who had been reviewing and don't worry stormqueen, I'll answer all your e mail questions soon! You see, the big problem with my e-mail is I can get them, but most of the time I can't reply, so I answer then via my updates. So if you sent me a question and it hasn't been answered yet, I'm sorry! I will answer soon!

Love forever and ever:

pottergal

PS. Don't forget the questions when you review!

1) What's your favorite part of the chapter? And why! This doesn't have to be long, and it can be for whatever reason. It made you laugh, cry, etc. etc.

2) What do you think could be improved on in the chapter? If you can't think of anything, you don't have to answer.

3) What do you think is going to happen next? (He, he, I love these ones! You guys come up with the most creative ideas.)


	4. Helga, the Reluctant Nurse: Part One

Howdy and welcome to chapter four! Hope you're enjoying it as much as ever, and now, the long awaited moment. We find out what has happened to our beloved Arnold! (If you don't remember what happened, I suggest you re-read!) It's starts getting more sentimental from here, folks! (I hope, oh boy do I hope. *crosses fingers*) But before I start, here are some questions I've gotten from two or three people via e-mail.

1) How do you write your fan fiction? It seems like I'm actually watching an episode or something. (This one is from stormqueen, and I'm so sorry that I can't seem to e-mail you back!)

Well, to answer that, I'll first say that I start by watching a ton of Hey Arnold with my friends. As we watch, I try to pick up on little details that the characters do, the inflection of their voices, and such. But most of it comes from my friends, who I bounce ideas off of, and they give me feedback and tell me whether or not the character works. (We also watch the show together and they lay into me with everything in my fic that's wrong). For instance, my friend is a huge Gerald fan, and completely hates the way I write him. She says he's not the way that she thought he'd be. But I'm flattered to think it could be like an episode! Thanks!

2) What has happened to Arnold??

Um, read on and you'll find out!

3) Do you listen to music as you write? And if so, what kinds? (This one is also from stormqueen ^^;)

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Most of the time, the music helps me get into the mood of a scene or something. If you're wondering what kinds, just look at the mood of the part and then listen to something that fits. Probably most of these next few chapters would be best read with something melodramatic and slow, which is kind of funny, to me, any ways. Hope that answers your question!

And before I go onwards, does anyone know why all the anonymous reviews have been replaced by that weird . . . whatever you want to call it? Maybe it's so they don't get lost or something . . . oh well, I just thought it was very strange. But woo! I'm up to 37 reviews, even if the page says 32 or whatever it was when I just checked. That's more than my other story got, that's for sure, and my other story has more chapters! Then again, it kind of gets lost in the huge section that HP is . . . ^^; so now, without further waiting, I bring you the fourth chapter.

Love forever and ever:

pottergal

PS. Before I continue, I almost forgot. Disclaimers still apply; I don't own Hey Arnold, Craig Bartlett and Nickelodeon do. I'm a poor student, and if you want to sue me, you're getting nothing because I don't own anything! Oh yeah, and about the story, it's now in Helga's POV for a while, and I'm sorry if she's not normal because I'm having the darndest time trying to get her right. I've spent nearly a whole week with my friends trying to hammer out the quirks, so I apologize now if she isn't how you imagined her. I don't need a flame telling me that you hate her as I've written her.

*~*~*

~~~~**~~~~**~~~~**~~~~

A Rainy December

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Chapter Four: Helga, the Reluctant Nurse

Part One

By: pottergal

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*~*~*

"Frankly, Arnoldo, I'm surprised you even showed up today. I certainly wouldn't have." Helga said with her arms folded across her chest, her eyes narrowing into a soft glare. Her Arnold, he just didn't know when to lie down and give it up, did he? But that's why she loved him, after all. His unfailing determination, his blind faith in the idea that everything would turn out as planned, no matter what happened . . .

"That's you, Helga. You're not me." She couldn't help rolling her eyes at him, outwardly acting exasperated.

"Well that's obvious." She said and she shook her head. "Yeesh, football head, you never know when to call it quits; you're just too dedicated to school! I mean, look at you, you look like someone beat you with a stick or something." She quipped and frowned a bit as his eyes began to glaze over. "Hey, hair boy, are you listening to me? Hello, earth to Arnoldo!" She waved a hand infront of his face slightly only to watch his eyes roll back up into his head.

"ARNOLD!" Helga's shriek echoed through the street as he gave a small moan and toppled into her arms. All pretenses of anger or disgust were abandoned as she caught him. "Arnold, Arnold speak to me! Can you hear me?" She said, shaking him in desperation. This couldn't be happening, she told herself. Arnold just doesn't collapse like this, what's going on?

"Ugh . . ." He stirred a little, but didn't come around. "Grandma . . ." He murmured quietly. "Grandpa . . ."

"This is too much like what happened to Phoebe . . ." She thought aloud as she looked around the street. Much to her amazement, the whole block was abandoned. No one could be seen in either direction. So Helga stood there, in the middle of the sidewalk, holding an unconscious Arnold with his head lying on her shoulder and began to panic silently. What was she supposed to do? She'd never had to deal with anything like this before.

__

It's okay, calm down, Helga, old girl. You can handle this. She drew several deep breaths, her arms tightening around Arnold unconsciously. Think, she told herself. What would be the most logical thing to do right now? _I need to get him home. I need to get to the boarding house._ And with setting that first task, she began to formulate a way to get there.

"Yeesh, he's heavy." She muttered and after a moment, she had Arnold on her back with his arms draped over her shoulders. Bending forward slightly to ensure that he wouldn't fall off, she secured her arms beneath his legs and started off. As she walked, she wondered what she would do if someone saw her carrying Arnold piggyback style. Should she have left him there and gone for help?

__

Help? Did you see anyone on the street that could've helped? Sure, if you'd wanted to abandon him in the snow you could've gone for help. And who knows how long it might've taken you to find someone who would've been willing to do so. She glanced over slightly at his sleeping face and couldn't help a small smile. He was even more handsome when he was resting like that.

__

Helga, focus! Arnold is undoubtedly sick, and you need to get him to a place where he can get better. You don't have time to obsess over him just yet. She thought to herself angrily and focused on the sidewalk infront of her. Arnold groaned softly and stirred a little more, making Helga stop. She couldn't have him slipping out of her grasp.

" . . . Grandma?" He said quietly, his voice a half mutter. "Grandma . . . where's . . . where is . . ." Helga couldn't stop the concerned look on her face as Arnold stirred a bit more violently. What could he be dreaming? "Grandpa . . . house . . . fell down . . . where . . .?" He groaned again and fell silent. After waiting a few moments to ensure that his sudden speaking spell was over, Helga started off again.

It took Helga about fifteen minutes to lug Arnold's dead weight back to the boarding house. When she got there, she spent five minutes just pounding on the door, but much to her frustration, no one answered. She muttered something about stupid, deaf boarders before removing Arnold from her back and rummaging around in his pocket for a key. She found one and opened the door, but forgot to step aside for the animals and nearly was trampled in the sudden stampede.

"Hey, watch it!" She shouted as a cat ran into her legs before hissing up at her and continuing on its way. "You move aside next time!" She yelled after the herd but then caught herself. Who actually yelled at animals? "Lord, I'm really losing it." She muttered before turning back to the house.

"Hello?" She called to the darkened interior, a faint creak of the door hinges answering her. She frowned; where was everyone? She knew Arnold's grandfather was in the hospital, but what about his grandmother? And what about the other boarders? She bit her lip as she thought things over. No boarders meant no quick and easy solution to her problem.

"Better get him inside first." She picked up Arnold and shut the door behind her. She peered into the living room and the kitchen, though both were dark and deserted, before walking up the stairs. It was difficult with Arnold in her arms, but she managed. The second floor was as dark as the first, and no one came out to see who was in the hall. It was beginning to give Helga the creeps; shouldn't people wonder who was causing the footsteps? Shouldn't someone come out to check and see?

__

His room is . . . ah. She reached the end of the hallway and looked around for the stairs in the dark. She finally found the cord before pulling it gently and the stairs to Arnold's room fell from the ceiling. She carried him up the second flight of stairs and cautiously opened the door to his room. She always loved this place, his sanctuary. The general blue scheme enhanced the overall calm atmosphere that it held and Helga would've killed just to sit in it and admire her surroundings.

"First things first." She told herself firmly before she could begin to drift. "Get Arnold better. Then you can daydream." She muttered as she set him on his bed and began to shake him again. "Arnold! Can you hear me, Arnold?" His head lolled from side to side, but he still didn't wake. Helga sighed softly, but part of her hadn't really expected it to work. She then removed one of her gloves and placed her hand to his forehead. Her eyes widened slightly. She was no expert, but she was willing to bet that he had a fever.

__

A thermometer, I need a thermometer. But before she left on her hunt for the tool, she first removed Arnold's boots, scarf, and gloves and pulled his comforter over him. He groaned slightly, but rolled on his side and pulled the blanket around him more tightly. Smiling to herself over Arnold, she then found his remote and after a little experimenting and an extremely loud blast of jazz, she got his couch to pop out of the wall, with the blanket she'd been looking for. She unfolded it and placed it on top of Arnold. He stirred slightly and she touched a hand to his cheek to calm him.

"I'll be right back." She whispered as she ventured down the stairs, back to the dark hallway. Part of her began to jump at shadows, and she was immensely relieved when she found the light switch near the first stair well. She hadn't been able to flip it on her way up due to the fact that she'd been carrying Arnold. She flipped it now, the hallway lighting up in one brilliant flash and she had to blink a few times to get her eyes to adjust. She then found the bathroom with its "W.C." nailed to the front and began to rummage around in the medicine cabinet.

__

Come on, where to they keep that thing? She began to mutter to herself as she found a couple of bottles of tylenol and motrin, but no thermometer. She then began to search the drawers of the cabinet beside the sink and found some rubbing alcohol and cotton balls, which she figured might come in handy. Sighing in frustration, she picked up her loot from the bathroom and headed downstairs. Maybe they had a miscellaneous cabinet in the kitchen or something.

Braving the downstairs was even harder than the upstairs, partly because it had even more shadows and dark corners. Helga could've sworn that she'd seen something move at one moment, and felt ten times better once she finally found the switch for the kitchen light. Placing her things on the table, she began to go through the cabinets, and sure enough, his grandmother kept one devoted entirely to bandages and general medical supplies.

__

Yeesh, where'd she get some of this stuff? Did she raid the hospital or something? Helga wondered as she came across a particularly strange looking bottle. But her perseverance paid off and Helga finally came across an old mercury thermometer in its own plastic case. Adding it to her pile carefully, she took everything back up to Arnold's room upstairs.

"Arnold? Are you awake?" She tried as she entered his room, and gave a small sigh of relief as she watched his green eyes open blearily. "Finally. Here, I need to take your temperature, so could you sit up?" She said as she set everything down on his desk. She then opened the little case and gave the thermometer a few good shakes to get the mercury back to the bottom.

"Wha . . .?" He stared at her, his eyes only half open. "Hel . . . Helga?" He murmured. "Where . . . where am . . . I?" She walked over and sat beside him on his bed. He rubbed his eyes a couple of times as she checked to make sure that the thermometer was back to where it should be.

"You're in your room. I brought you here after you collapsed on the street." He blinked a few times and his eyes grew larger. "Now open your mouth. I need to find out if you have a fever or not." Obediently, he opened his mouth, and Helga placed the thermometer beneath his tongue. She watched as he collapsed against his pillow, his eyes focusing on the skylight above their heads, and part of her felt extremely relieved that he wasn't asking questions. Helga then turned her attention to the clock across the room to keep track time.

After a few minutes, she took the thermometer from him, and after twisting the thing back and forth, she finally figured out how to read it. Matching the miniscule silver line up with the scale, she then gave a small whistle. Arnold, who'd draped an arm over his eyes, peered out from beneath it questioningly.

"One hundred and one." She told him and he groaned. "Seems like you finally got sick with what everyone else has, football head." She shook the thermometer to clear it before putting it back in its plastic case and then walked over to the desk. "I'll give you some tylenol like the nurse did for me, okay?" She opened the little bottle and doled out two of the white pills. "Do you have any water up here?"

"Nope." He shook his head, his face hidden beneath his arm again. She put down the medicine and sighed.

"Then I'll go get you a glass. In the meantime, Arnoldo, you need to get out of your street clothes. Where are your extra blankets? And the switch for the heater? It's freezing in this house of yours. Yeesh, where is everyone to complain?" She said as she began to rub her arms to warm herself up. "Crimeny, how am I supposed to get you better when this place is like a fridge?" She muttered, reverting to the tone she used around him normally as he sat up. He pulled off the extra blanket before wrapping it around himself.

"I'll go turn on the heater, okay? It'd be too hard to explain where it is." He started to get up and Helga pushed him back down.

"You're not going anywhere, hair boy. You understand me? You're sick, and that means you stay put. I'm perfectly capable of finding everything, bucko, so I suggest you start explaining." She said as she folded her arms over her chest, her walls of anger back up. He glared up at her darkly, causing part of her to quail in fear. He rarely used his honestly angry glare, but when he did, he was frightening.

"This is _my _house, Helga, last time I checked. I don't need you to boss me around here too!" She scoffed slightly and rolled her eyes.

"Well last time I checked, football head, you could barely stand upright on your own. And last time I checked, I'm not the person with a fever who needs rest. Do you know what that means, Arnoldo?" She tapped his chest slightly. "_You_ get to stay put while _I _get you the glass of water and turn on the heater." They started glaring at eachother and finally Helga sighed. She couldn't ever win with him; she couldn't ever overcome his determination.

"Look, football head." She tried, her tone a bit more gentle. "I know you want to help, but right now you need to stay in bed. I can't have you making your fever any worse, okay?" Her abrupt change clearly threw him off as he blinked several times in confusion. "So could you please just tell me where the heater switch is? I'm not so much an idiot that I can't find it."

"All right, all right." He said with a defeated sigh and began to tell her where to find everything.

" . . . and the extra blankets are in the closet in my grandparent's room!" He called after her as she walked down the stairs from his room.

"Yeesh, football head, give it a rest! You've told me about ten times!" She called back to him and began mentally reciting his instructions. The switch for the heater was in the hall, but before she could turn it on, she had to venture into the basement and make sure the pilot light was lit on the furnace. If it wasn't, she'd have to light it, and then she'd be able to turn it on. But even then, she may have to go downstairs and give the beaten up old thing a few good whacks just to get it to start.

__

I can see why he said it was complicated.

It took her a while to get the heater to come on, seeing as at first she couldn't even find the basement. Determined not to have to head back and ask Arnold, she opened every door downstairs, even if it meant being hit in the head by an ironing board. Rubbing her head sullenly, she decided it was still better than having to deal with a triumphant "I told you so" from a sick Arnold.

Once she found the door to the basement, which turned out to be through the kitchen, it took her a minute or so to work up enough courage to venture into the pitch black. She decided to find a flashlight first, and with it, she was able to find the cord to pull for the light. Then she had to figure out which one was the furnace, which took her a little bit, but she breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed the pilot light was still lit.

Heading back to the thermostat, she clicked it on and waited for the familiar groan that usually followed. However, nothing happened. Swallowing a curse and with the thought of that "I told you so" from Arnold egging her on, she ventured back to the basement to do battle with the furnace. He'd said a few good whacks ought to do it, so she picked up a piece of pipe that seemed as though that's what its use was, and hit the thing. A large cloud of dust accompanied the metallic clang, making Helga cough and sputter and covering her with a layer of gray. But it had worked, and the furnace groaned to life.

Feeling pretty satisfied with herself, Helga went back upstairs and shut the door behind her. As she'd already opened all the doors downstairs, she knew which one was home to Arnold's grandparents. Opening their closet, she found a large pile of thick blankets and grabbed them off the shelf. She then returned to the kitchen and poured a glass of water. With the blankets in one hand and the glass in the other, she then climbed the two flights of stairs back to Arnold's room.

"Have any trouble?" Arnold asked when she entered the room. He'd changed into his pajamas and was curled up beneath both blankets. He peeked out at her wearily as she entered and she squashed the smile that had been threatening to form. She then shook her head and set the pile of blankets on his couch before picking up the medicine from where she'd set it.

"None at all." She handed him the glass of water and the two tylenol and he gave her a look.

"Then why are you all dusty?" He asked as he took the medicine from her and swallowed the pills with a gulp of water. "Have any problems with the heater? I noticed you got it to turn on."

"Of course I did, Arnoldo. What do you take me for, a big moron? Crimeny!" She said and rolled her eyes. He sighed a little before placing the water glass on his bedside table and snuggling down beneath the covers. Instinctively, Helga reached over and pulled the blankets around him more tightly. "Before I let you drift off, where is everyone? I know about your grandfather, but . . ."

"Grandma is with him, and everyone else left for the holidays. There's no one here but us." He murmured, his voice muffled by the pillow. "If you wanna get a hold of Grandma, she's at the main hospital . . . but I don't know which room they put Grandpa in . . . check under Phil . . ." And he trailed off before he could tell her the last name. Sighing a little, Helga finally allowed herself a small smile at Arnold. He looked . . . so angelic when he was asleep. Well, he looked angelic most of the time, so it was kind of ridiculous to say he looked that way just in his sleep.

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Let's just say that it enhances his charm. She thought with her admiring smile. She reached out to touch his cheek tenderly, but thought better of it for fear of waking him up. Drawing her dusty hand back, she turned and crept from his room, making up her mind to call her mother. She'd need to know where Helga was, at least.

"But what am I going to tell her? I can't just leave Arnold here alone with no one to watch over him." She mused as she descended the stairs to the first floor. Lost in thought, she barely noticed as she locked the front door. It was the ringing of the phone that snapped her out of her trance and back to reality. "Now who could this be?" She murmured as she picked up the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Hello, this is Arnold's grandma. Is he in?" Helga felt a surge of relief at the sound of the older woman's voice. Now she wouldn't have to badger already annoyed secretaries to find out where Arnold's grandfather was.

"Yes, as a matter of fact he is! But there's a problem, he can't exactly come to the phone right now." Helga said, trying to think of the best way to explain it to his grandmother. "You see, Arnold is - "

"Oh, he's _indisposed_, is he? Well, I can call back if he needs more time." Helga blinked a little, trying to understand what the woman was suggesting. "Do you know when he'll be done in the loo?" Helga felt her face heat.

"No, no! He's not in the bathroom." She said hastily, and heard a faint 'ah' from the other end of the line. "Arnold is sick! He's upstairs resting; that's why he can't come to the phone." There was another faint 'oh' and Helga drew a deep breath. "Look, I have a problem. There's no one here, and Arnold is sick. I -"

"I see. Who, may I ask, is speaking?" His grandmother said, not allowing Helga the chance to finish her thought.

"Helga, ma'am. Arnold collapsed as he was walking home, so I brought him here and he's got a fever of about one hundred and one, and I honestly have no experience caring for sick people. I -"

"Oh, so this is Eleanor! How are you, my dear? How kind of you to get young Franklin home safely." Helga frowned at the phone, soundlessly mouthing the word 'Franklin'. Didn't she mean Arnold? "From the sound of it, you have everything under control. I'll call back in a little while to check up on things, all right? Bye-bye!" And with a faint click, the old woman hung up. Helga stared at the phone blankly for a moment and then replaced it on the hook.

"Oh, this is just perfect. Now what do I do?" She muttered hopelessly. "Arnold is sick, his loony grandma won't listen, and I don't know what will help him." She ran her fingers through her hair as she began pacing back and forth. "And what about Miriam? She's going to be worried sick." Her mind wandered back to her own mother, and she sighed.

__

Yeah, I bet she's real worried about me. It's likely that she's more worried about her smoothies than me. Helga thought bitterly and looked at the phone. She should call her at least, or even go home to get a change of clothes. The more time that went by, the more it was looking like she was going to have to stay with Arnold. There was no one in the boarding house, and his grandma couldn't seem to understand that her grandson was sick.

"Here goes nothing." Drawing a deep breath, she dialed her number and crossed her fingers, praying that Miriam would pick up. After five rings, someone did pick up, but it wasn't her mother. It wasn't even her father.

"Hello, Pataki residence." Came Olga's prim and cheery voice through the phone line. Helga goggled at the phone for a moment before jumping for joy at her sheer luck. "Hello? Is anyone there? I'm going to hang up if someone doesn't say something."

"No, wait! Olga, don't hang up, it's Helga!"

"Helga?! Baby sister, why are you calling home? And where are you? Nobody is home. Do you know where Mother went?" Helga rolled her eyes at Olga's barrage of questions.

"I have no idea what happened to Miriam, but listen, Olga, I need your help. I've got a major problem on my hands." She said and heard her sister say a faint 'go on'. "It's like this. A . . . well, I suppose you could call him a friend of mine suddenly collapsed as we were walking, so I brought him back to his house and it turns out he's got a fever and is really sick."

"Oh dear!" Came Olga's voice and Helga shushed her.

"Let me finish, crimeny! His guardians are both sick in the hospital and all of the other people who usually stay in his house are gone. All of them left for the holidays so there's no one to stay with him and help him get well." She licked her lips, part of her hesitant to say the rest. "So here's where you come in, Olga. I need a really big favor from you."

"I'm listening, baby sister. Go on."

"I need you to bring me a bunch things, because it looks like I'm going to have to be the one to take care of him." She said and a stunned silence met her. Helga waited anxiously for her sister's decision and began to chew absently at the inside of her cheek.

"That's a pretty big responsibility, Helga. And I'll do whatever I can to help, okay, baby sister?" Olga said cheerily and Helga breathed a small sigh of relief. "Just tell me what you need and I'll bring it right over."

"Okay, here's what I need you to do . . ."

*~*~*

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"Arnold . . ." A soft voice broke through the quiet surrounding the boy and he struggled to ignore it. He'd been resting; why would he want to move right now? "Arnold, you lazy bum." The voice said with a giggle, a high annoying giggle to be exact. "Arnold, wake up! You can't just sleep all day, you know."

"What do you want?" He muttered and opened his eyes slowly to see that he was surrounded by darkness. He blinked and looked around again. "Hello?" He called and the same giggle that had awoken him now taunted him from the blackness. "Who's there?"

"You're such a silly goose, you know that?" The voice said with yet another giggle and Arnold frowned. "Come and find me, Arnold!"

"Who are you? What do you want with me?" He called and took a small step forward. Abruptly, the darkness vanished and Arnold had to hold up a hand to shield his eyes from the sudden bright light. A gentle breeze ruffled his hair and brought the smell of warm salt water to him. He wiggled his toes and found that he was standing in the whitest sand he'd ever seen.

Where . . . am I? _He wondered as he looked around. He stood at the edge of a bright beach, right where the tree line met the sand. Tall palm trees towered above his head and puffy white clouds floated across a cerulean blue sky. His gaze then wandered to the ocean, which was a deep sapphire blue; it was a blue he never thought could possibly exist._

"It's . . . paradise." He murmured as he took several steps towards the water. The sand wasn't hot, despite the brilliant sun overhead, and it warmed his feet pleasantly. "This is wonderful." He said as he reached the water's edge and rolled up the pants of his pajamas so he could wade in up to his ankles. The water was a delightful temperature and playfully lapped around him.

After he'd had enough of the water, he walked out and sat down on the sand, part of him wishing that he could stay here forever, with the delicious salt smell and gentle breeze. The ocean, where he lived, was cold most of the time, and beaches weren't fun unless it was summer.

"Isn't it just beautiful?" A familiar voice said and Arnold looked up to see a girl standing at the water's edge, her white sundress rippling slightly in the breeze. "I love the ocean, it just makes me so calm." He stood slowly and watched the sun reflect off her golden hair. Her back was to him so he couldn't see her face, but her voice . . .

"Who . . . are you?" Arnold asked and she started to turn to him slowly. But before he could see her face, darkness swallowed everything. "Hey!" He yelled as he reached out for the girl, but she was gone. "What is going on here?" He muttered and looked around.

"Arnold, come find me!" The giggly voice was back, taunting and angering him. "You have to find me, Arnold!"

"I don't even know where to start looking!" He shouted and moved to take a step. Just like before, the darkness lifted, and Arnold found himself at school. He stood in the abandoned cafeteria, blinking. Everything looked as though it had gone through a fire and was charred to a cinder.

"All right men, let's try and find the bodies!" The door suddenly burst open and five firemen stormed in, their bight yellow gear contrasting sharply with the blackened interior. "There should be three students that didn't make it out alive. The least we can do for their families is find their remains."

The firemen rushed passed Arnold, completely ignoring him. He didn't try to call out to them either, he just walked through the open door to see about half the school waiting on the blacktop. A slightly singed Mr. Simmons was there, holding the hands of two young students, who were screaming at the top of their lungs. The rest of the students looked shell-shocked.

"Calm down, Phoebe! Calm down!" Arnold heard his own voice say and turned to see himself trying to quiet Phoebe, who was wringing her hands and shifting from foot to foot anxiously. "I'm sure they're all right, just calm down!"

"No they're not! You heard the fireman! They're dead! Helga, and Lila, and Gerald . . . they're dead! All three are dead!" Phoebe screamed at him before falling to her knees and sobbing. Arnold felt his eyes widen as he watched himself place an arm around Phoebe, who couldn't stop screaming and crying uncontrollably.

"No . . ." He muttered before turning and running away from the cries of anguish. He ran down the streets to his house and threw open the door, running into the kitchen to see his grandmother and grandfather sitting at the table, their expressions somber. Grandpa had his head in his hands and Grandma had reached over and touched his arm gently.

"Nothing this bad has happened in years, Pookie." He said, his voice choked with emotion. "I wonder how short man will take it . . . his best friend . . ." Arnold stood in the doorway to the kitchen watching his two grandparents, his heart sinking. What was this? Could this really be happening?

"And Eleanor . . . poor little Eleanor. I'm going to miss her, I really saw so much of myself in her . . ." Grandma said as she squeezed Grandpa's arm. "She was just so much like me when I was her age!"

"Grandma, Grandpa, they're not dead! This isn't happening!" Arnold shouted, but neither heard him. "Both of you, listen to me! They're not dead! They can't be!" He tried again, and Grandpa stood.

"I'll go and find him and bring him home, all right? I'll be back soon, Pookie." Arnold watched helplessly as his grandfather turned and walked towards him, but before he reached Arnold, the darkness came again, shutting out everything. Arnold fell to his knees, slightly shocked from what he had seen. What was this? What was going on?

"Arnold?" He turned quickly to see Helga, though she looked battered and bruised, her hair matted and her pink jumper torn. He stood slowly and stared at her, and she looked back, her gaze unflinching. "What're you doing here? You're not supposed to be here."

"What are you talking about?" But she remained silent, her gaze fixed on him steadily. Arnold stared deep into her eyes and felt himself drift off into the intense blue, their emotion and color swallowing him. Suddenly he was choked with sadness, a deep, painful hurt pulsing through his soul.

This feeling . . . where's it coming from? _He wondered as he curled into a ball._ It's so cold, so . . . so much pain . . . _It grew and grew, stabbing directly into his heart, piercing his very being with its anguish and sorrow . . ._

"Stop . . ." He said, his teeth gritted as wave after wave of the sadness broke over him. "Stop . . . it! I don't want this!" He shouted, but the emotion merely grew, making him scream at the very top of his lungs . . . yet no one heard, and his cries were swallowed, dwarfed by the sheer power of the feeling.

And abruptly, the feeling stopped.

It quit coming, it quit breaking over Arnold, who was able to finally focus on the sound that now broke the quiet of the darkness around him. He listened carefully, intently, and finally realized what it was. It was the sound of the soft sobs as someone cried.

"Who . . ." He said softly as he tried to place the source of the sound. He looked around and finally his gaze landed on a small child, their blonde hair wet and their clothing soaked. It looked as though someone had splashed him or her with mud. "Are you all right?" Arnold called to the child, who stopped crying and looked up.

"Who are you?" The child was a small girl with the deepest blue eyes and lashes thick with tears. "You're not here to splash me too, are you?"

"I wouldn't dare." Arnold said and he held out a hand to the girl. "Come with me and we'll figure out a way to get you dry, okay?" She looked at his hand and then her gaze traveled up to his face.

"You're nice, mister." And she stood slowly. "I've been alone for so long now . . ." She smiled at him, and Arnold couldn't help feeling like he'd seen that smile somewhere before once. "It's nice to know someone cares once in a while." And with that, she waved at him and vanished.

"Wait!" Arnold shouted, but it was no use. He was left alone once again.

*~*~*

And there's a good place to stop. Yes, yes, I know, it's shorter than my normal chapters, but I figure long chapters are harder for people to read. Don't think that'll stop me in the future though; I like writing long stuff. So what's going to happen? Is Olga going to help? And what's with Arnold's dream? That is a dream by the way. Why else would it be in italic? Well, you're going to have to wait for chapter five! And expect more dreams, I love doing them. See you all there and don't forget to review with the answers to those questions, except do them for this chapter!

What do you think of the dream? Crazy enough for ya? I love doing surreal stuff like that because it gives the writer a chance to hint at things subtly, or maybe not so subtly. Anyhoo, enough of my chatter, I'll head off to write chapter five.

Love forever and ever:

pottergal


	5. Helga, the Reluctant Nurse: Part Two

Hello and welcome to chapter five! I'm sorry that this is rather behind, but my teachers have started piling on the homework. God it sucks being in AP classes. Second semester starts and all of your teachers whip out their shoves and start in with the homework. I have had little time to write over the past week, and I'll say right now that I'll update once a week. (Sighs) But that's how school goes, right? And I hate it.

And I know, that last chapter was shorter than usual, but hey! They're still good, right? Well here's the continuation of the chapter, just like I promised. Hope everyone enjoys it like they normally seem to do (I honestly hope all those reviews aren't just meant to pacify me or something . . . Reviewer: Let's just tell her she's good so she won't kill us!) and let's get this show on the road! Don't forget to keep answering those questions from way back in chapter three! I love hearing your answers!

Love forever and ever:

pottergal

PS. Disclaimers still apply! Yes, they do, and they will continue to do so forever! I won't ever own Hey Arnold, that will belong to a brilliant man by the name of Craig Bartlett, and Nickelodeon. His characters are being used to serve a purpose in my plot, woo. 

*~*~*

~~~~**~~~~**~~~~**~~~~

A Rainy December

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Chapter Five: Helga, the Reluctant Nurse

Part Two

By: pottergal

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*~*~*

About twenty minutes after calling Olga, Helga was opening the door to the boarding house for her big sister, who was carrying a duffel bag stuffed full of things. Right behind her was an elderly man with a rather large bag, and Helga recognized him as Dr. Smith, the same man who had examined her a while ago. As she let them in, Olga explained things and as Dr. Smith went upstairs to examine Arnold, she brought the duffel bag into the kitchen and laid out everything. Olga had brought several changes of clothes for her and some detergent and quarters in case she needed to do her laundry. That wasn't any problem for Helga, who normally did her own laundry; she wouldn't let Miriam get within ten feet of her clothes, not with the memory that woman had.

"And I brought you a list of things you can do for your little friend in cases of emergency, like if he starts throwing up everywhere or something." She set a thick stack of papers on the kitchen counter before returning to the duffel bag and taking out several little pill bottles. "And here's what's left of your medication from when you were sick, in case he starts having the same sort of symptoms as you did." She set out the three orange plastic bottles beside the stack of paper.

"Thanks, Olga. Did you work out what you're going to tell Dad?" Helga asked as her sister pulled out her school books and things. "Oh, joy. You just had to bring those over, didn't you?" Helga poked her math book absently and Olga nodded with her customary smile.

"We can't have you falling behind so I called your teacher and requested your work for the last day of school. Everything has been taken care of, little sister, so you don't have to worry one bit." Olga said and Helga looked at her with slight disbelief. "And don't you worry one little bit about Daddy. I worked it out so you're staying with that friend of yours . . . Phoebes . . . Phoeba . . . ah . . ."

"_Phoebe._" Helga said in exasperation. "So I'm staying at Phoebe's; did you already talk to her mother about it?" Olga nodded with a smile. "And she was actually going to play along?"

"I told you not to worry, little sister! I have everything worked out so you'll be home a little before Christmas. I'll tell Daddy that you're doing a project where you have to stay at Phoebe's house for a week. That should give you plenty of time to get your friend better, shouldn't it?" Olga asked and Helga shrugged a little.

"I hope so."

"Well, if it's not, just give me a call. I'm going to be home until after New Years." Olga then picked up her purse and after rummaging around for a moment, handed Helga a credit card. Helga stared. "I'm giving this to you as a backup. Don't you dare use it unless you really have to, and if the bill comes back with a huge amount, I'll make sure you pay it." Helga grinned.

"Sure thing, Olga." She took the card, not doubting her sister for a moment. "I guess that means no sudden trips to Hawaii, doesn't it." Olga gave her a look and her grin widened.

"No, I'm sorry, no sudden trips to Hawaii. I left you some cash as well, but this is in case you don't have enough on you. Use it for supplies only, okay? And that means food and medicine, no shopping sprees." Olga said sternly and Helga nodded.

"I know, Olga. I swear I won't use it irresponsibly." She said and Olga raised her eyebrows. "Okay, okay, I swear I will only use it if I really have to, and only on things that I really need. Happy now?" Olga's smile returned and she nodded. "Yeesh, my own sister expects me to run off to the Caribbean or something." She muttered with an eye roll.

"I know you'll be fine, Helga, but if you really need anything, help, you name it, be sure to call. I'll be over as fast as I can." Olga said as Dr. Smith appeared in the doorway to the kitchen.

"It seems your little friend has the flu. His fever may come and go over the next few days, but once it finally breaks, he will be fine. I suggest bed rest and plenty of fluids, with fever reducers taken every four to six hours." Helga nodded as the doctor spoke and Olga moved to stand beside him. "It's nothing too serious, and I'm sure you can handle it. Olga here tells me you're quite good at these sort of things."

"Sure." Helga said a little weakly and managed a smile. 

"Yes, she's the one who always takes care of our family when someone gets sick, isn't that right, Helga?" Olga said and Helga nodded numbly. The three of them began to walk to the door as Olga continued on for a moment longer. When they reached the door, Helga opened it and gave her sister a genuine smile. "Take care, okay, little sister?"

"You too, Olga." The two embraced and with one final ruffle of Helga's hair, Olga hurried out to her car, Dr. Smith right behind her. Helga waved until Olga was out of sight and then she shut the door with a sigh. Now that her sister and the doctor were gone, the whole place felt empty and creepy again. After locking the door, she walked back to the kitchen and put her books and clothes back into the duffel back. The medicine and pile of papers could be moved to Arnold's room, she decided, so she took those upstairs before she did anything else.

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I wonder if he's still asleep . . . She thought as she pushed the door open cautiously. Her gaze landed on the huddled lump that was Arnold, and since he couldn't see her, she smiled gently. _Still sleeping like a baby._ She walked in as quietly as she could and set the papers and the medicine beside the other bottles of pills on his desk. She rearranged them slightly, checking to see which of her medicine Olga had brought. The antibiotic . . . the nasal decongestant . . . and the cough syrup. Well, these were helpful if Arnold had a cold or something.

"Ugh . . ." The quiet groan from Arnold nearly scared Helga half to death and she turned to him, her heart pounding against her chest. He was lying on his back, his arms spread out and his blankets in a tangle around his ankles. His eyes were squeezed shut tight and he was grimacing. "No . . . rain, cold . . . go . . . don't . . ."

__

He's dreaming again. Helga walked cautiously to his side, a concerned frown on her face.

"NO!" He shouted suddenly, making her jump a second time. "Ugh . . ." He rolled over on his side and curled into a ball, his whole body shivering. "Cold . . . Grandpa? So . . . hot . . ." Helga frowned. Why was she shivering if he was hot? With a confused sigh, she grabbed the blankets and pulled both over him, but he didn't stop shivering. She touched a hand to his forehead and blinked. Was it just her, or had the fever gotten worse?

*~*~*

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Arnold felt a small bubble of air leak out from his mouth as he lazily opened his eyes and saw the most beautiful blue he'd ever seen. It was the sky, unblemished by white clouds. In part of his mind, Arnold realized he was underwater, silently floating with the current of the ocean, but mostly he was in awe of how blue the sky was. How . . . how did it get that way? How could it possibly be so very blue?

He watched fish swim past, blinking their eyes at him but not giving him a second thought as they continued on their way. Arnold continued to drift with the waves, the water sparkling around him with the sunlight. He felt no desire to move or try and fight . . . he just continued wandering without a care in the world. It was a wonderful feeling, to be so relaxed . . .

He remembered being so hot for so very long; it had been as though he'd been trapped in an oven, with no means of escape . . . For that reason, the warm, yet cool waters of the ocean were a welcome relief. It was refreshing, a small reminder that things wouldn't stay bad forever . . . things would get better, and now he was floating gently where ever the water decided to take him. It was . . . nice.

After a while, Arnold realized he'd been washed ashore. He lay on his back on the wet sand, the small waves breaking soothingly around him, caressing him with tenderness and relief from the heat that had plagued him for so very long. He continued to stare up at the blue sky lazily, his fingers curling absently around the wet sand. The sun moved slowly across the sky, and Arnold blinked a little as the waves began to retreat from him, abandoning him to the rays of the sun.

"Hot . . ." He murmured as the sun beat down on him, slowly burning his skin and stealing every shred of moisture from him. Part of him knew it would be wise to move, to move out of the direct path of the sun, but he lacked the energy to do it. For some reason or another, Arnold just couldn't muster enough strength to get himself to.

"Why should I have to move?" He murmured, his throat parched. "I was here first. The sun should move. Or something should block it out." He knew that it didn't make sense, as it was impossible to get the sun to move instantly, but right now nothing mattered much. All he remembered was how wonderful the water had felt, and he wished that it hadn't left him here, on the burning sands.

For what seemed like an eternity, the sun bore down on Arnold, who continued to lie on the beach, his arms spread out beside him. After a while, he noticed something. The blue sky that had held not one single cloud now held several. But they weren't the puffy white marshmallow kind; these were dark and angry, and moved and multiplied quickly, blocking out the sun with their blackness. Arnold watched curiously as thunder rumbled in the distance and a loud crack of lightning lit up the sky.

"Wow . . ." He said, his eyes wide in awe. He'd never been able to watch a lightning and thunderstorm before, at least not like this. Several more flashes of light illuminated the heavens and were accompanied by close following booms of the thunder. Arnold didn't flinch once; he barely had the energy to keep his eyes open, much less to be frightened of a storm.

It's . . . beautiful . . . _He thought absently as little rain droplets began to fall from the black storm clouds. They hit his face gently, cooling the burn from the sun and bringing him relief. He shut his eyes with a smile as the water fell down on him, quenching his thirst and soaking him with their coldness._

When he opened his eyes again, the rain had stopped and the sun was out once more, but it didn't have quite so harsh a feel to it. Feeling as though the rain had given him strength, Arnold pushed himself up slowly. He saw the waves were beginning to creep tentatively towards him again and soon they were sloshing around him playfully, as though asking forgiveness for abandoning him.

"I feel better now, thanks." He said with a laugh and looked out at the horizon. Everywhere beyond him was a vibrant blue of varying degrees, the sky and the water meeting at some undefined point in the distance. It was a flash of white off to the side that brought Arnold's attention from the vastness before him and made him focus on a point closer to himself.

It's her . . . the girl from before . . . _He thought as he stood shakily. She stood on a rock out at sea, not far from him. Her beautiful golden locks flashed in the sunlight as the breeze tossed them back and forth. It also toyed with her sundress, rippling the white material gently. He started to move towards her, but the waves suddenly began to push him back, away from her._

"Hey, you!" He called to her, waving an arm to get her attention. Just as she seemed to hear and started to turn to face him, a giant swell rose up between them, knocking Arnold back to the beach. He had to squeeze his eyes shut tight as the waved crashed into him; the salt water had begun to sting his eyes horribly.

He felt himself hit the sandy beach, and the wave pulled away, leaving him on his back. He waited for the water to drain completely before he rubbed at his face and opened his eyes.

"I'm sorry about that. Are you hurt?" He blinked up at the girl, who was standing over him, her blonde hair hanging over her shoulders. He swallowed the disappointment; with her back to the sun, it cast a shadow over her face such that he couldn't see it to place it with the frustratingly familiar voice.

"I'm sure that it didn't mean to do that, but the ocean can be tricky sometimes. It's like the heart, in that sense." She mused. "When you're not looking, it can change in an instant." He could make out her lips as they curved in a smile. "Do you want to hear the poetry I thought up as I stood out there?"

"Li . . . Lila?" He managed to get out and watched her smile fade slowly, making him blink in confusion.

"Of course you'd think of her." Her voice was even more familiar now, and as Arnold blinked a second time, things suddenly changed. No longer was he lying on his back in the sand; now he was in his classroom, lifting his head lazily from his desk. He blinked around at everyone, who were watching him with amused smirks and smiles.

"Hel . . . Helga?" He choked as his gaze landed on the girl. She was sitting on Mr. Simmons' desk, her arms folded over her chest and her ankles hooked around eachother. The jumper was back with the white shirt, along with the pigtails. She rolled her eyes and hopped down before smacking one of her hands down on his desk. He jumped, suddenly fully awake.

"We've been trying to get you up for the past fifteen minutes, bucko, but it seems your dream was far too good." She said with her sneer. "What was it about, anyway? Little Miss Perfect over here?" She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the redhead, who looked slightly worried.

"Arnold, I told you . . ." He sighed as Lila started her 'ever so' familiar line. "I like you, but . . ."

"I don't like you, like you." They finished together and Arnold rolled his eyes. "I know, Lila, forget it." He stood from his desk and stretched, yawning. "So where is everyone else?"

"Lunch started fifteen minutes ago, Arnold. We were just waiting for you to wake up." Gerald said and they started out of the classroom. Helga and Lila walked ahead of them slightly and were the ones to open the cafeteria doors. "Man, when you told me you hadn't slept well last night, I didn't believe you. But now I do." Gerald said as he followed Helga and Lila into the lunchroom, but before Arnold could follow, the doors slammed shut in his face.

"What the . . ." He muttered as he started pulling on the door handles. "Hey, what gives? Let me in!" He pounded on the door a couple of times, but no one came to open it. Frowning, he pressed an ear to the door. His frown deepened when he heard nothing. "Gerald? Helga? Lila?" He called as he pounded on the door again.

Huh? _He watched in shock as the orange doors before him burst into flames beneath his hands, a suffocating heat suddenly blanketing everything. He coughed and fell to his hands and knees, red and yellow flame surrounding his body. _So . . . hot . . ._ It pressed down upon him, nearly unbearable._

"Arnold . . ." He looked up, and through the dancing flames, he saw Helga looking down at him. Flames, too, licked at her, but she seemed unaffected. All her attention was focused on Arnold. "Why did you leave me? Why did you abandon me while you ran free?" She asked, her voice full of cold anger, making Arnold shiver despite the heat. "You're so selfish, you know that? I'm trapped, and you get to run around, free as a bird! It's not fair!"

"What are you talking about?" He asked, confusion running though him. "You're not trapped and I'm not free. What's going on?"

"I've been trapped for six long years, and you . . ." She trailed off, her voice a low growl. "You! I hate you!" She shouted and Arnold felt slightly stung by her words, though they weren't anything new. "I hate you, Arnold!" She shouted and tears filled her eyes. "I hate you." A few trickled down her cheeks as the flames burned higher for a moment, and then . . .

She was gone.

"Helga!" He shouted as the flames died away, leaving him alone in the darkness. "Helga, come back, I didn't mean . . . I'm sorry!" Why did he feel so horrible? She always said those words. What was it about them this time that made him feel awful? Perhaps because it seemed like she actually meant it?

"Come back . . ."

*~*~*

Over the next few hours, darkness came quickly and Helga struggled to keep herself calm. She'd never have to deal with a sick person before, which was one of the reasons seeing Phoebe puke all over the nurse's office had unnerved her so much. Helga read and re-read Olga's list of instructions, so to speak, and did her best to battle Arnold's fever. She had only dim memories of what her mother had done when she'd been sick, so she tried hard to emulate that.

His fever, it turned out, had gotten worse. Last time she'd checked, it had been at about one hundred and two, and a half. According to her sister's list, at one hundred and four, she needed to fill the tub with ice water and dunk him in. But that, Olga said, should only be used as a last resort, because it was incredibly uncomfortable for the person being dunked.

At about nine in the evening, Helga's stomach gave a loud grumble, and she realized she hadn't eaten anything since noon. Dipping her washcloth into the bowl of ice water she'd brought up a while ago, she gently sponged off Arnold's forehead. He was lying on his back again, but she'd pulled the covers up to his chin. He groaned softly and drew a few deep breaths as Helga looked at the clock. At nine thirty, she needed to give him some more medicine and said a silent 'thank you' that he wasn't throwing up.

__

What should I make for dinner? Or maybe I should just order something, I can't afford to be cooking and have Arnold need my attention. She stood and stretched; she'd been sitting for a while now. Shaking the feeling back into her legs, she walked downstairs to find the phone book. What should she order? Pizza, or what else? There wasn't much selection, that was for sure.

She finally settled on pizza; she'd rather be safe than daring right now. Flipping through the book, she finally came across her favorite pizza parlor and ordered a small cheese pizza. When the man had asked for her address, she'd had to run outside for a second and check; she may've known how to get there by heart, but she couldn't remember Arnold's address right off the top of her head.

"It'll be about twenty-five minutes to half an hour. And don't forget there's a delivery charge and a tip." The annoyed sounding man said before giving her a total and hanging up. Helga hung up the phone, muttering about lousy service, before heading back upstairs to check on Arnold. She sighed when she saw that all the covers were once again around his ankles and he was curled into a shivering ball.

"What am I going to do with you?" She muttered in a motherly sort of way, and then caught herself. Gah, what was she becoming? "Crimeny, you'd think I actually enjoy doing this sort of thing." Helga said as she tucked the blankets around him for the umpteenth time that evening. Kneeling beside his bed, she wrung out the washcloth before placing it tenderly on his forehead. "I wish I could move you downstairs somehow . . . but then I'd have to carry you back up, and I'm really tired, so chances are, I'd drop you." She rested her elbows on the edge of the bed, her chin in her hands. "And I doubt you want to be dropped." Without thinking, she reached over and began to toy with a lock of his hair.

"Ugh . . . who?" She blinked as his green eyes opened slowly and focused on her lazily. "Who're . . ." He said, his speech slurred from sleep. He blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes. "Helga . . .? Why are . . . what're you . . ."

"You're sick, remember? There's no one to watch over you, so I got stuck doing it." She said with an eye roll. Now that he was awake again, her customary character was back. "And since you're awake, this gives me the perfect opportunity to give you your medicine. Can you sit up?" She asked as she got the tylenol and the glass of water.

"I . . . don't know . . ." He said as he rolled onto his back and focused lazily on the ceiling. Helga pursed her lips in thought before putting the little white pills on the bedside table. Sitting beside him on his bed, she slid an arm beneath his neck and helped him sit up enough to drink some water.

"Don't swallow just yet, okay?" She then swapped the water glass for the medicine and gave them to him. "Okay, now you can swallow." He gulped down the water. "Do you want more to drink? The doctor said you should have plenty of fluids." Arnold nodded and she gave him the rest of the water in the glass. "Do you want some more? I know you need it."

"Yes." He said with another nod.

"Then I'll be right back with some. I hope you don't mind that it's tap water." She said as she stood and he grunted. His arm was once again draped across his eyes. "I'll take that as a no." She said before walking out of the room. Just as she reached the bottom stair, there was a loud knock at the door that made Helga nearly jump out of her skin. She set the glass down on the last step before peering through the peek hole. It was the pizza delivery guy.

__

About time. She thought as she opened the door and handed the pimply teen fifteen bucks. Taking the pizza, she shut the door and locked it again. Retrieving the glass, she took both it and the hot pizza to the kitchen and set them down on the table. Refilling the glass, she then started back up the stairs to give Arnold his water.

"You still awake?" She asked softly as she entered the room. There was another grunt as he peered up at her. "Here's your water. Can you sit up this time to drink it, or should I have brought you a straw?" She watched as he managed to push himself up to his elbows and she handed him the glass. "Drink it all, football head. It seems like your fever has come down a little." She said as she touched a hand to his forehead.

"You're still dusty, you know." He said as he finished off his water. "What time is it?" He asked as he looked at the clock. "Wha . . . how'd it get to be nine-thirty?" Helga took the empty glass from him as he stared at the clock.

"Well, Arnoldo, you have been sleeping for most of the day. Let's take your temperature right now, okay? I want to see where you stand right now, whether your fever has indeed come down a little." He nodded and managed to push himself up the rest of the way. She walked over to the desk and opened the little plastic case, shaking the thermometer a little to ensure it was clear. "Here." He opened his mouth and she placed it beneath his tongue.

"Who was that the door?" He asked, though most of it came out odd due to the thermometer in his mouth. Helga had to think a moment before she understood what he'd said.

"I ordered some pizza because I didn't feel like cooking. If I'd decided to make something, I couldn't leave it unattended. What would I have done if you'd needed my attention or something? I could've started a fire." Helga said as she focused on the digital clock across the room. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Arnold nodding. "Okay, time." She took the thermometer from his mouth and twisted it a little to read it.

"I'm surprised you thought that far ahead." Arnold said and she noticed he'd wrapped a blanket around himself. "So what does it say?" Helga frowned a little before shaking the thermometer.

"It says you're down to an even hundred." He looked a little surprised. "But don't get your hopes up just yet, bucko. Dr. Smith said your fever would come and go in varying degrees for the next couple of days. He recommended lots of bed rest and fluids, with things like tylenol and motrin taken every four to six hours or so." She said as she replaced the thermometer in its little case.

"Who's Dr. Smith?"

"My family's doctor. My older sister Olga got him to come over and take a look at you." She turned back to him. "Listen, I'll explain more, but I'd like to go down and eat something. I'm sure you're hungry too." Right on cue, his stomach grumbled. "So let's find your slippers and then we can talk more in the kitchen." She opened his closet and pulled out a pair of matching blue slippers. Handing them to him, the two started downstairs.

When they finally got to the kitchen, Helga set Arnold up on a kitchen chair, his spare blanket wrapped around him tightly. He put his head down immediately after sitting, and groaned softly. Apparently it took a lot just to walk down two flights of stairs, especially since he was sick. After making sure that he was going to be all right, Helga began rummaging around in the cupboards. She'd put the pizza in the refrigerator, deciding to save it for when she really needed it. Now that Arnold was downstairs with her, she could make them both something without fear of letting it burn.

__

Soup . . . soup . . . where does his grandmother put the soup? She finally opened a cupboard and smiled when she found two cans of hearty vegetable soup. Carefully reading the simple instructions, she found a saucepan and dumped in the contents, along with some water and a little milk. _Soup is easy to make. I should probably cut up some bread as well . . ._ She thought as she placed it on a burner and put the lid on.

"Hey, Arnoldo! Do you have any bread?" She asked and he lifted his head so that his chin rested on the tabletop. "Well, do you?" She put her hands on her hips, expressing her impatience.

"I don't know, Helga. I don't usually do the cooking." She heaved a small sigh and rolled her eyes. "What are you making, anyway? I thought you had pizza." He asked as she turned back and started searching for some bread. What she finally found was some uncooked biscuits that came in the container that popped open when she removed the seal.

"I did, but I figured I'll save that until you can have some too." She said, her attention divided between him and finding a baking sheet. After preheating the oven, she carefully laid out the biscuits and checked the baking time. "Ten minutes, perfect." She muttered as she checked on the soup and threw away the containers of the soup and the biscuits.

"You're making soup?" He said with a groan.

"Yes I am, football head, and you're going to eat it. I'll shove it down your throat if I have to." She said as she stirred the soup mixture slightly and replaced the lid. "It's easy to make and it'll help you feel better." The oven light clicked off, signaling that it was now at the proper temperature. She slid the door open and winced at the heat before sliding the sheet of biscuits in. "Okay, ten minutes from now they'll be ready. In the meantime . . ."

"What?" She ignored his question as she got down the largest mug she could find and poured some milk into it. She then placed it in the microwave and set the timer for one minute. "What're you doing now?"

"Hold your horses, bucko." She said as she searched through every cabinet again, looking for the honey. She finally found the little plastic bear that it came in behind a jar of oatmeal. Once the timer chimed signaling that the microwave was finished, she took out the steaming mug of milk with a hot pad and brought it over to the counter. After finding the cutlery drawer, she took out a spoon and began to stir in honey to the hot milk. She tested a small spoonful after a moment and nodded to herself.

"What's this?" Arnold asked as she set it before him with a fresh spoon.

"It's something my mom would make for me when I was sick with the flu. It's warm milk with honey." She said as Arnold sat up slightly, a curious look on his face. "Go on, I haven't poisoned it." She said with a smirk and turned back to the soup. It was now boiling steadily, meaning that it was done. She turned off the burner and removed the saucepan from the heat. Looking over at the clock on the wall, she noticed that it was also time for the biscuits to come out of the oven.

"Hot pad, hot pad . . . where'd I put it . . ." She muttered before finding it and opening the oven to peek at the biscuits. Sure enough, they were a good golden brown, so she removed them and turned off the oven. Setting the sheet on the stove by the soup, she then found a spatula and a ladle, and brought down two bowls and two small plates.

"Do you like butter, hair boy?" She asked as she served up the soup and set one bowl before him. She then placed the biscuits in a dishtowel to ensure they'd stay warm before putting it on the table.

"No, it's okay." He said as she set out the two small plates and got another spoon for him. She was going to reuse the first one she'd dirtied. After taking one final glance around to make sure the stove and the oven were turned off, she grabbed a couple of napkins and finally sat down.

For the first few minutes they ate in relative silence, with Helga eating quickly and Arnold eating more slowly. She went back for seconds before he'd even finished his first bowl, and after a moment, he set down his spoon and stared at her.

"You are Helga, aren't you?" She stared at him, her spoon lifted halfway to her mouth. "Because the Helga I know would never do this. Am I dreaming or something?" She gave him a look as she returned her spoon to the soup bowl. "The Helga I know hates my guts. She wouldn't cook for me, or act this . . . this amazing."

"Really." She said and folded her arms over her chest. "Well, let me remind you of something I've already said, football head. I can be an amazing person when I want to be. So eat your soup and drop it." She snagged a few biscuits from the towel and took a bite from one before dipping it into her soup.

"But . . . but . . ." She looked up at him and he looked so confused as he ran his fingers through his hair. "None of this makes sense."

"Try analyzing when you feel better, Arnoldo, and eat your soup before I have to come over there and force you to." She ordered and he picked up his spoon. "What, you don't like my cooking? Would you rather be stuck with someone like Sid or Stinky trying to take care of you? Because tomorrow morning I can always arrange it."

"No, you're cooking is fine." He said hastily as he took a sip of soup. "In fact, it's very good. I just wish . . ." He sighed as he looked up at her. "You're so . . . perplexing, you know that? No matter how hard I try, you never make sense." His green eyes seemed to be trying to pierce her every barricade, just as they'd done the time they'd met atop the FTi building, and it was making her shift uncomfortably in her seat.

"Don't even bother, hair boy. That's who I am, an amazing, yet confusing person. I don't want to make sense to people." He finished his soup quietly, his gaze still focused on Helga. After watching him warily for a moment, Helga finished her second bowl of soup and ate a few more biscuits.

"You must make sense to Phoebe at least. Why else would she stay your best friend if you treated her like you treat most everyone else?" He said as he set down his spoon and finished off the last of the milk and honey. Before Helga could make a come back about Phoebe, he changed the subject. "You know, I am feeling better after this milk and soup. Thanks for making it, Helga."

"You're welcome." She said automatically, though her tone was bitter. She stood and took the plates to the sink, where she ran them under water. She'd wash them after she finished cleaning up the rest of the kitchen. "If you want some more, I can easily make it for you." He nodded and she took his mug and refilled it with milk before sticking it in the microwave. She then found a plastic ziplock bag for the leftover rolls and put the pots and pans in the sink along with their dirty dishes.

"Do you need any help?" Arnold asked as Helga ran hot water in the sink after pouring some detergent in.

"No, I'm fine. You stay put." As she moved around, she was uncomfortably aware of his eyes following her. She made him his milk and honey and then went back to washing dishes. She focused on her task, trying hard to forget the green-eyed gaze that seemed to be glued to her back, analyzing her. Grabbing a fresh dishtowel, she dried everything off and put it away in its proper place before sponging off the table, the counters, and the stove, leaving it as clean as when she'd first come. She then found a broom and started sweeping.

"You don't have to do that, you know." Arnold said, and Helga noticed he'd finished his milk and his chin was once again resting on the tabletop. She gave him a small glare and continued sweeping.

"So what if I want to, okay? Crimeny!" She said as she swept everything into a neat little pile and then into the dustpan. After tossing the dirt, she replaced the broom and the pan and then took the empty mug from Arnold. "Are you done?" He nodded sleepily and she washed it as well.

"You know what, Helga? You really are amazing. I'd never expect you . . . to be a . . . a housewife type." He said as his eyelids began to droop and she bristled at the term 'housewife'.

"Me? A . . . housewife? Ha!" She gave a small sharp bark of laughter. "I call it more of survival, Arnoldo. Bob can't cook worth beans, but the only time him and me are forced to fend for ourselves is when Miriam can't get herself out of her smoothie high. Which, come to think of it, is most of the time." She said as she picked at a spot on the table absently. "And, oh, guess who gets stuck with all the housework on weekends? Me, that's who. Bob is off doing business and my own mother is too wasted to care."

"That's . . . nice . . ." She looked up to see Arnold had fallen asleep and she sighed a bit sadly.

"You too, I suppose. I must've bored you to sleep with all my petty problems." She walked over and brushed a few strands of golden hair from his face. "I should've seen this one coming . . . now I have to carry you upstairs." She sighed again before sliding him from his chair. "I hope for your sake that I don't drop you."

Helga actually managed to get Arnold up both flights of stairs without coming close to dropping him. Sure, it took quite a lot of effort on her part, but she got him up to his room and back into his bed. She then felt his forehead again and bit back a curse. His fever was back, yet again. She shouldn't have ever asked him to come downstairs; that had clearly taken far too much energy on his part and had made it easy for the fever to reclaim the ground it had lost.

__

Looks like it's going to be a long night . . .

*~*~*

And there's a good place to stop. Hope no one minds . . . well of course you do, you want to know what happens. Well you're just going to have to wait until chapter six, aren't you? Heh. So what do you think is going to happen? Is Helga going to have a breakdown from dealing with a sick Arnold? Is Arnold's grandmother going to get a clue? Tune in next time for some more crazy dreams, a dancing Helga, and I don't know what else. Don't forget to review, I love getting reviews!

Love forever and ever:

pottergal


	6. Crazy Dreams and Thunderstorms

Hello everyone out there! We're back with the sixth chapter, at long last. I'm so sorry to have been gone so long, but my teachers kept piling on homework. I had a huge essay for English, a poetry project for English, a ten-page research paper for Government, and then all my other teachers seemed to have doubled their homework load. I can only hope that things slow down soon . . .  
  
I hope everyone is enjoying this story as time passes and more and more chapters appear, and I apologize again for making you all wait so long. Oh, that reminds me! I recently got a question asking me why the story is called "A Rainy December" when it's not rainy, but snowy? (As you can guess, this one was from stormqueen. How does she come up with all these questions you ask? I honestly have no idea.) Well, here's my answer:  
  
You're going to have to wait and find out! (Begins laughing evilly) Trust me on this one, anything that happens in this story happens for a reason. Well, maybe not everything, but yeah.  
  
Well, I suppose I should get going with the story, shouldn't I. Oh, and keep answering those questions! I love your answers so much; they're great!  
  
Love forever and ever: pottergal  
  
PS. Disclaimers still apply, blah. You know what I'm talking about, so let's get this show on the road. But before I can, I forgot I need to give credit for a couple of songs that appear in this chapter. There's one that I have no clue what the name is, I just remember the lyrics from the movie Dark City. If anyone has seen the movie and knows the song when you read this, PLEASE TELL ME! Not only do I love that song, but also I can't find the name anywhere. And the other one is from the Escaflowne movie. It's the song called "Sora", so if you have the soundtrack for the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about. Listen to that song on repeat when the dream shows up! It'll enhance the mood or something :P.  
  
*~*~*  
  
~~~~**~~~~**~~~~**~~~~  
  
A Rainy December  
  
Chapter Six: Crazy Dreams and Thunderstorms  
  
By: pottergal  
  
~~~~**~~~~**~~~~**~~~~  
  
*~*~*  
  
Two days had passed since Helga had begun to take care of Arnold such that it was now a Saturday afternoon. Just as Dr. Smith had said, Arnold's fever had indeed come and gone for the past few days, once even reaching a temperature as high as one hundred and three. Miraculously, Helga had maintained her calm all throughout the crisis and hadn't pulled all her hair out in frustration and helplessness. Sure, it had torn her up inside while her darling had lain on his back, suffering horribly from the fever, but she'd struggled to do everything she possibly could to help him.  
  
She'd made ice packs to place under his neck and arms, just as Olga's instructions had said, and she'd dabbed his face with ice cold water continuously, feeling glad that she didn't have to dunk him in the tub just yet. She couldn't imagine a ruder wakeup call than being dumped in freezing water.  
  
And so, she had struggled on, with Arnold waking up occasionally to drink as much water as she could force down his throat. Never again did she ask him to come downstairs for fear that the fever would return as badly as it had after the first time they'd gone downstairs. That Thursday night had been horrible, with Helga setting his alarm clock at hourly intervals to ensure she kept a steady watch over his condition. It turned out, however, that she didn't need it. She was so terrified that something was going to happen to him that she never dozed off in the first place.  
  
Friday night had been better, with Helga making up for her missed sleep then. She managed to snag about seven hours and awoke Saturday morning to find a peaceful Arnold, his fever minimal. It gave her hope that it had finally broken, but she tried not to press her luck. Hope for something good was always like a soap bubble for her; if she stared at it for too long, admiring it, eventually it would pop, crushing her desires.  
  
Arnold had slept on, all through the daylight of Saturday, giving Helga time to devote to herself. She'd showered, despite her disgust for the filthy bathroom, and had done some laundry, finally washing her dusty clothes. Then, after checking on Arnold to make sure he was still doing fine, she made something to eat; it had been small to be on the safe side. Then, not wanting to do homework just yet and feeling possessed by a strange power, she'd hunted down the cleaning supplies and began to attack their bathroom with every cleaning solution she had.  
  
Once the bathroom was finished and spotless and smelled strongly of bleach, Helga had checked on Arnold again, and he was still sleeping. Still not feeling any urges to do homework, she began to clean the kitchen, sweeping and mopping and dusting until it was shining. She then went to work on the living room, giving it the same treatment. She polished, dusted, cleaned the windows, and so forth until the whole downstairs smelled of lemon cleaning solution.  
  
What has gotten into me? She wondered with a touch of horror as she caught herself humming as she put away the cleaning supplies. Since when do I enjoy housework? But . . . it was Arnold's house after all, and cleaning it made her feel . . . well, so very happy. It made her feel like she belonged and actually was a part of his life. For the rest of the day, she couldn't get rid of her dopey grin, even after she started folding her clothes.  
  
And so, the afternoon rolled around. Helga had finally broken down and had started her homework, which mainly consisted of math and some grammar. It was all ridiculously easy, and she finished it in no time at all. After putting her books and school things away, she pulled out a book of poems that Olga had shoved into her bag and sat beside Arnold's bed, her back resting against the mattress. Her love was still asleep, but she didn't mind.  
  
"The New Yorker, Selected Poems from Contemporary Poets." She murmured the title as she opened the thick book and began to read through the hundreds of poems crammed into it. Time rolled passed without Helga bothering to notice, and from the corner of her eye, she caught Arnold moving closer to her unconsciously. She smiled slightly at him before reaching over and running her fingers through his hair absently.  
  
She didn't even realize what she'd started doing, she just kept reading her book. She'd stop occasionally to turn a page, but finally when she quit for good, Arnold muttered something and rolled closer, subconsciously asking her to continue. She blinked and watched his unconscious reaction when she began to play with his hair again; he smiled.  
  
"You'd think I was petting a cat or something." She said softly as his expression relaxed into a peaceful, dreamy smile. She was sure that if Arnold had been a cat at this very moment, he'd be purring with content.  
  
A faint knock at the door made Helga sigh, but she stopped and stood, placing a marker in her book as she set it down on Arnold's bedside table. With one final glance over to make sure he'd be all right, Helga slipped out of his room and downstairs. Once she'd peered through the peek hole, her heart gave a small thump; it was Arnold's grandmother.  
  
Helga drew a deep breath and opened the door slowly. She knew this moment would come, but for some reason, now that she'd gotten used to caring for Arnold, she didn't want to give it up. She was finally close to the one she loved with all her heart without having to push him away, and a huge part of her didn't want to give it up just yet.  
  
"Well hello there, little Eleanor! So good to see you. Is Franklin any better, or is he still feeling under the weather?" Helga blinked in surprise as the old woman gave her a fierce hug. "I really hate to have you do this, but I appreciate what you're doing for my Kimba." It clicked for her suddenly; Arnold's grandmother played word games. She must be Eleanor, and this Franklin and Kimba were Arnold.  
  
"Um, actually he's still asleep." She said in a half whisper. "His fever has been pretty bad for the past few days, but he managed to make it through all right." His grandmother beamed at her.  
  
"See, Eleanor? I knew you could handle it." She gave Helga a pat on the back. "Now about my reason for stopping by." Both of them entered the main hallway and Helga shut the door. "Phil is still in the hospital, and as much as he hates it, he needs to stay there for a few more days." Helga's heart leapt slightly; did that mean she was still needed here?  
  
"And as you can guess, I still have to stay by his side. But since I left here in such a hurry, I forgot a change of clothes, so I came by to check in on you and get me some supplies." Helga followed her as she walked into her bedroom and began rummaging around for a suitcase.  
  
"How long do you think you're going to have to stay there . . . ah . . ." Helga trailed off, uncertain what to call her.  
  
"Call me Grandma, or if you're not comfortable with that just yet, call me Pookie or Gertie, Eleanor." Helga elected the one that sounded a bit more normal and less pet-name like. "But about your question, I think those people at that institution are going to finally let him out next Tuesday, so we'll be back then." Gertie said as she began to throw things into the suitcase.  
  
"Tuesday?"  
  
"Yessir, just in time for Christmas too. I know how much Kimba loves Christmas, and I'd hate to have it ruined this year." Gertie straightened and stretched a little. "Well, I think that's everything I need to survive in that place. What do you say I fix up a little something to eat before I go? And by the way, the place looks great. Kudos to you, Eleanor."  
  
"Thanks." Helga said, and felt her cheeks heat slightly. For some reason, this woman intimidated her, but she couldn't put a finger on why. She tried to shove the thoughts away as Gertie put a hand on her shoulder and steered her into the kitchen.  
  
"How about some pasta? It's quick and simple and tastes great." She said as they entered the kitchen.  
  
"Sure, I don't mind." Helga said and the two set to work, boiling the noodles and cooking the sauce. After about twenty minutes, the most delicious smells wafted from the kitchen and the two ate their pasta as they talked about the most incredible things. Helga found herself opening up to the older woman, talking to her about things she'd never even told Phoebe. And before she knew it, Gertie had become sort of the mother Helga had never had.  
  
"You clean up this mess and I'll go put on some mood music, okay Eleanor? I know just the thing." Gertie said as she disappeared into the living room. Helga put everything in the sink and washed them quickly. As she dried, she heard some faint clicks, and soon a slow, sultry voice was drifting through the house.  
  
"When the rumba rhythm starts to play, dance with me, make me sway."  
  
Helga blinked a little at the familiar song, but the one she'd heard had been a remix. The one she was listening to now must be the original. She put down the dishtowel and ventured out into the living room, where Gertie as dancing by herself. Helga stared, and before she knew it, Gertie had grabbed her hands, and the older woman was swinging her around like nothing.  
  
"Like a flower bending in the breeze, sway with me, stay with me."  
  
"Don't you just love the rhythm? This has always been one of my favorite songs. I simply adore it!" Gertie said as she spun Helga around. "Oh my, is that really the time? It sure has flown hasn't it? I've been here for almost an hour!" She exclaimed as Helga collapsed onto the couch. "Hope you don't mind me running out on you like this, Eleanor, but I told Phil I'd be back earlier than this!"  
  
"I don't mind at all." Helga said as Arnold's grandmother raced from the living room and snagged her suitcase from her bedroom. "We'll see you and . . . Phil? Yeah, Phil back on Tuesday." She got up to see Gertie to the door, and the older woman grabbed a large umbrella from the bunch in the rack.  
  
"Looks like a storm's brewing, Eleanor, so be sure to stay warm tonight. I can feel it coming in my bones and this horrible headache, and I can tell it's going to be a big one." As Helga opened the door, a large gust of wind blew down the street, scattering snow and making people clutch their jackets more tightly. "I expect it'll rain for a while, and we might even see some lightning! Hope that doesn't scare you." Helga shook her head.  
  
"I don't think so. We haven't had one in a while." She then blinked as Gertie pulled her in for a hug.  
  
"Take care, Eleanor. I know you and young Franklin will be fine, but it doesn't hurt to be careful." Gertie said and patted Helga's shoulder fondly. Helga couldn't help smiling up at her.  
  
"I know. You take care too, okay? I hope Phil gets better quickly." She called as Gertie walked down the steps to the green Packard parked infront of the house. The two waved, and before Helga knew it, Gertie had driven away in a blaze of snow.  
  
That woman's crazy as a jay bird, but . . . I can't help liking her. Helga thought with a smile as she shut the door and locked it. She then turned back to the living room, where the record was still playing. It took her a moment to figure out what she needed to do, but soon she had it replaying the first song.  
  
"When the rumba rhythm starts to play, dance with me, make me sway."  
  
Helga smiled as the woman sang and started imitating the steps Gertie had led her through, though she did so at a much slower pace. The one the older woman had set had been too fast for the music, and plus Helga could barely remember the steps from that whirlwind moment. Humming along with the song, she dipped and twirled, bowing to an imaginary partner.  
  
"Like a flower bending in the breeze, sway with me, stay with me."  
  
*~*~*  
  
"Win dain a lotica  
  
En vai tu ri Si lo ta Fin dein a loluca En dragu a sei lain Va fa-ru les shutai am En riga-lint."  
  
Arnold opened his eyes slowly as a haunting melody reached him, the voice singing so very sad and heart wrenching. He blinked a little, trying to clear his vision and take in his surroundings, but all he saw was the darkened shapes of trees looming overhead. He pushed himself up slowly to find that he was lying in the middle of a narrow dirt path, lined by thick dark green bushes. Frowning a little as he wondered how he got there in the first place, he managed to stand and brushed himself off.  
  
"Win chent a lotica En vai turi Si lo ta Fin dein a loluca Si natigura neuver Floreria for chesti Si entina."  
  
"Who's . . . who's singing?" He wondered aloud before starting off in the general direction of the voice. There were only two directions he could possibly go, after all, since the bushes were so thick on either side that he couldn't even begin to make them budge.  
  
The voice continued singing the beautiful, yet very sad melody, as though it was urging him on somehow. Arnold followed the path as the voice continued to repeat the first two verses he'd heard. He followed it, despite the seemingly endlessness of it and the multitude of twists and turns. Just as he was tempted to give up hope of finding the singer, the volume would get louder, making him believe that he was indeed getting closer.  
  
"Finally." He muttered as he reached the end of the path. The bushes and thick trees on either side suddenly gave way to a giant circular clearing. Arnold's mouth fell open in sheer awe as he looked around it. Here the trees were non-existent, allowing the night sky to shine down on an enormous pool of inky black water. Part of Arnold wondered if it even was water because it was so incredibly still; there wasn't a single ripple or wave marring the smooth surface.  
  
"La la la . . . Fontina Blu Cent De Cravi esca letisimo La la la . . . De quantian Le Finder eve."  
  
Arnold's gaze finally traveled to a sight he was surprised that he hadn't seen in the first place. In the dead center of the black pool, a single ray of moonlight shone down on a figure in white. As he stared, Arnold began to realize that the figure was actually a young girl in a flowing white robe. She was sitting on a large curved log that rose from the surface of the pool, her toes dangling just above the water, and it didn't take Arnold long to realize that she was the singer.  
  
"Win dain a lotica En vai tu ri Si lo ta Fin dein a loluca En dragu a sei lain Vi fa-ru les shutai am En riga-lint."  
  
Her song was beautiful, sung with such sorrow and pain. Arnold listened quietly as he took a seat at the edge of the pool. He listened intently to her gentle soprano, her voice rising and falling gracefully as she sang. Part of him wished he knew what she was singing about, but deep down, he knew. Her song . . . he'd known what the words had meant from the moment he'd heard them uttered.  
  
It was about being alone.  
  
The girl was singing about a person who'd become trapped by her own fate, her own destiny, to be alone, apart from everyone for her entire life. All her emotions, all her joy, suffering, and sorrow had been locked away for so long that she no longer felt them. And so, she was alone. Trapped by her inability to feel, she walked her chosen path by herself, too prideful to change it, too prideful to bring back her true self.  
  
Once the girl finished her song and opened her eyes, Arnold began to clap slowly. The girl looked up to him and smiled slightly, and it was then he noticed the veil she wore. It was a thin, opaque piece of material that obscured her features enough so he couldn't tell if she was someone he knew now, or it was someone he had known in the past.  
  
"You enjoyed my song?" The girl asked, and her voice was annoyingly familiar. If only he could see her face . . . then he'd be able to place it for certain.  
  
"Of course I did. It was very lovely, even if it was so sad." He could see her lips curve in a small smile. "That person you were singing about . . . who was it?" He asked as he stood and took a step towards her. He noticed then that the water only reflected one thing; it swallowed every reflection except for the girl's.  
  
"Can't you tell?" She asked, a small note of disbelief in her voice. Arnold shook his head.  
  
"It was about a girl who was trapped into being alone . . ." He began as the girl lifted her arms. His eyes widened. "It's . . . you?" He breathed, for around her wrists were a pair of silver manacles. The thin chains from the manacles were connected to another pair around her ankles, and then the chains disappeared into the inky black water.  
  
"It is, in a way. I am that girl's true self, you see. I am her emotions that she locked deep inside herself to keep anyone from discovering them." She said, the sorrow in her voice making Arnold take an unconscious step towards her. "I'm not at all surprised that you could hear the true meaning behind my song. For you see, Arnold, you are the only one who can set me free."  
  
"I . . . I am?" He asked in surprise. "But . . . but how could I do something like that? And how did you know my name?"  
  
"I know almost everything about you, Arnold, and if you break these chains that hold me, you'll understand why." He bit his lip as she waited, but the veil hid her face well enough that he couldn't see what she was thinking. "Will you do it, Arnold?"  
  
"But how can I get to you? Is there a boat or something? This water looks really deep, that is . . ." He peered down into the water, slightly unnerved that there was no reflection. "If this is even water."  
  
"You can cross it, Arnold. You are the only one who can do this." He looked up from the water to the girl. Drawing a deep breath to summon courage, he put a foot out to step into the water and to test its depth. However, his foot didn't meet icy cold water. Instead, it met something very solid. It looked as though he could just walk across it. Drawing another deep breath, this one from relief, he started walking towards the girl.  
  
"Do you know how I can get those chains off you?" He said once he finally reached her. The log curved higher than he'd thought, the flat part level with the top of his head. The girl shook her head slowly as Arnold took a look at the ones around her ankles. However, when he touched them gently, something incredible happened. They dissolved completely.  
  
"Did you see that?" He said, his voice echoing the stunned expression on his face. When he looked up at the girl, all he got was a mysterious, yet happy, smile. "Let me see if it works on the other ones." He took her hands in his own and touched the manacles around her wrists. Each one dissolved completely and the chain fell way soundlessly.  
  
"See, Arnold? I told you that you could do it." She said with a laugh and Arnold helped her down from the log. Just as her bare feet touched the surface of the black pool, the water began to rise up around them violently. Arnold drew a sharp intake of breath from shock as waves threatened to tear them apart.  
  
"What's going on?" He shouted as he struggled to maintain his grip on the girl's hands.  
  
"It's trying to reclaim me! Please, Arnold, don't let go!" With that, he started to draw her closer until he'd enfolded her in a tight embrace. Dimly he heard her gasp of surprise, but her arms went around him, squeezing him firmly.  
  
"It will pass in a few minutes." She breathed into his ear. "Just don't let go, or it will take you quite a while to find me again." The water rose up around them angrily, battering them to get them apart. Suddenly it seemed to swallow them, and a sickening falling sensation gripped him.  
  
"Have I found you before?" Arnold asked through clenched teeth, trying to get his mind of the feeling. He sensed her nod.  
  
"You found me once before, Arnold. But . . ."  
  
"I lost you." He sensed her nod again and suddenly the falling stopped. "Is it over?" He asked as he opened his eyes cautiously, and blinked. They were on that same beach, the one with the white sand and the deep blue sapphire water. "I think . . . I think we're safe now."  
  
"You're right." She said as they stepped away from eachother and she slowly removed the veil. "Isn't this wonderful? I love the beach." She did a small spin before him, her long golden hair spilling out around her and her robe becoming a white sundress. Arnold's mouth fell open as he realized who she was.  
  
"It's . . . it's you!" He said in surprise as the girl turned to him, a happy and utterly beautiful smile on her face. Her eyes matched the intense blue of the ocean and the sky and Arnold shook his head in shock. "But . . . it can't be. You're . . ."  
  
*~*~*  
  
Arnold awoke with a start, the faint sound of music jerking him from his dream. As he sat up, he tried to remember what it had been about, but . . . try as he might, it alluded him. He remembered the very last moment had been something important, and it was so frustrating that he couldn't recall what had happened.  
  
Voices from the hall reached him and he frowned. Was that . . . Grandma? He slipped out from underneath both blankets and wondered why on earth a poetry book was sitting beside his bed. He liked poetry, but he certainly didn't own any books . . . well, that is if he didn't count that little pink one, but that wasn't even a real published work. It was just a collection from some crazy girl.  
  
He heard the front door click shut as he crept down the stairs from his room. Who was here? Or maybe someone had left? As he descended the second flight to the first floor, he heard someone fiddling with the record player. Before he entered the living room, he had to stop and rest, his hands gripping the banister tightly. Why . . . why was he so tired? Was he . . . was he sick?  
  
"When the rumba rhythm starts to play, dance with me, make me sway."  
  
A slow, sultry voice sang and he heard someone humming along with the melody. As he summoned strength to finish the flight, he could hear the floorboards creaking slightly as someone moved across them. Was Grandma dancing again? He probably should expect to see her in that brilliantly loud tango outfit, with the red rose in her mouth.  
  
"Like a flower bending in the breeze, sway with me, stay with me."  
  
"Grandma?" Arnold called as he moved to stand in the doorway to the hallway. However, the person dancing in the living room certainly wasn't his grandmother. At first he'd thought she'd just gotten younger, much, much younger, but then his stunned mind realized who it was.  
  
"Helga?" He nearly shouted at her. She'd frozen in place the moment he'd shown himself, and as he watched her happy expression fade, he realized something. She . . . she was . . .  
  
"Arnoldo, what're you doing down here?" She snapped angrily, her hands on her hips. "You should be upstairs resting! Did you forget that you're still sick?" As she walked towards him, she clicked off the record player, but Arnold didn't move. She was wearing a white shirt with her jeans, and her long, golden hair was down, curling on the ends slightly.  
  
"You . . . you're . . ." He said, his thoroughly shocked mind fumbling for words. As she walked towards him, he finally remembered the last part of his dream, where he'd realized the true identity of the mystery girl from his many dreams. In every single one, she'd been Helga.  
  
"Don't tell me your fever came back . . ." She said with a groan and Arnold did the only thing he could do in a situation like the one he was in now. He felt his eyes roll back up into his head and . . .  
  
He fainted.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Helga sat beside Arnold's bed for the second time that day, watching him sleep peacefully. She could barely believe her luck after he'd fainted; his fever hadn't come back. Sure, his temperature was a little on the high side, but it wasn't at one hundred and one any longer. So, she'd done the best she could to lug him back upstairs and had put him to bed. Now that she had a moment, she could wonder what had made him collapse like that in the first place.  
  
A sharp crack of lightning over head brought her abruptly out of her thoughts and made her focus on the present. She looked up through the sky light of a ceiling and grimaced. Angry black storm clouds had completely covered the sky, blocking out the setting sun and pretty much any natural light. As a boom of thunder followed the crack, Helga shivered in spite herself. She wasn't about to tell anyone, but she had forgotten how much she hated storms like this one.  
  
"Ugh . . . Hel . . . Helga?" She looked down from the dark sky to Arnold, who was slowly opening his eyes. He blinked up at her a little as the faint tapping sound of water droplets hitting the glass echoed through the room.  
  
"Good of you to wake up, football head." She said as she tried to stop shaking. Maybe she could pass it off as being cold if he asked . . . "Why the heck did you collapse like that? Are you still sick or something? Your fever is almost gone, so I hope you're actually feeling better." She just talked, random words and thoughts pouring out of her mouth. She wanted to kick herself, but that's how she got when she was scared.  
  
"Actually, I am." He said as he sat up, giving her an odd look. "I still feel shaky and weak, but I'm not cold or anything." She watched him frown as he noticed she was rubbing her arms. "Are you cold?"  
  
"Sure am." She said, her teeth chattering slightly. "Heh, heh . . . I forgot to put on my sweater, that's all." She stood up just as another crack of lightning illuminated the sky. Before she could stop herself, Helga fell back to the floor, her hands clamped over her ears. The rumble of thunder followed almost instantly and she winced, the rain suddenly pounding on the glass roof.  
  
"Helga . . ." Arnold began as she pried her hands from her ears and looked up at him. He was wearing a concerned frown. "Are you . . . are you okay?"  
  
"Heh, heh . . . what makes you think that I wouldn't be, football head?" She said as she hugged herself, trying to force herself to stop shivering. "Of course I'm all right. There's absolutely nothing . . ." Lightning struck again, cutting her off and making her cry out slightly in alarm. Her hands were once again glued to her ears and her eyes were squeezed shut tight as the thunder followed.  
  
"You don't like thunder storms, do you." Arnold said as the rain could be heard again, and the wind howled around the house. She glared up at him, her shivers returning in full force.  
  
"What was your first clue, hair boy?" She snapped angrily. Br . . . how she hated this. "The fact that I can't stop shaking? The fact that I shriek every time lightning strikes? Or the way I cower in fear?" She said with a glare and earned an eye roll from him. Lightning crashed yet again and Helga grimaced. Why . . . why did it have to be a thunderstorm?  
  
"Well, why don't we go downstairs and do something? That way your mind won't have to focus on the storm." She opened her eyes to see him slide his legs over the side of the bed and slip his feet into his slippers. There was another lightning strike just as he wrapped the spare blanket around himself and suddenly there was a strange hum.  
  
"Uh . . . what was that?" Helga asked, her gut sinking in fear. She saw Arnold blink slightly, and then they were plunged into darkness.  
  
"Oh, just perfect!" She muttered and heard Arnold begin rummaging around in the drawers beside his bed. She shivered and began rubbing her arms again as her eyes started adjusting to the dark. "This is just what we need, a power outage."  
  
"Calm down, okay? I found my flashlight." He clicked it on and Helga winced at the second change of light. "All we need to do now is head downstairs; there are some candles and matches in the kitchen." From the glow of the flashlight, she watched Arnold scoot off his bed and wrap the blanket around him more tightly.  
  
"You sure you're up to that, football head? You could make yourself sick again." She said, looking at him. He turned to face her and shrugged.  
  
"Do I have a choice? I didn't think you'd want to go alone." She bristled angrily at his comment and stood.  
  
"I had to brave your dark and creepy house once before, Arnoldo, but that time I didn't have a flashlight." She said testily and took a step towards him. "If you think for one second that I can't handle a little darkness, you're very wrong." She glowered down at him.  
  
"It's not the dark that I'm worried about." He said and there was another crash of lightning, making Helga fall to her knees in sudden fear. "It's the storm." He knelt before her, offering his free hand to her. "For once can we do something without an argument? Things will go quicker if we work together."  
  
"I know, I know, cooperation." Helga said with a small sneer, but the thunder boomed loudly and she hunched over slightly, her hands flying to her ears in response. "Why? Why did it have to be thunder and lightning . . .? Snow I can handle. Rain I can handle. But not thunder, and not lightning . . ." She muttered and felt a hand touch her shoulder.  
  
"Come on, Helga." She gulped as she looked up at him, and the familiar look of determination in his green eyes gave her strength. She nodded slowly and slipped her cold hand into his, and the two of them started downstairs.  
  
It didn't take them long to find everything they needed to have the kitchen lit up brilliantly, due to the excessive amounts of candles Arnold's grandmother had stockpiled. Arnold also found a couple of kerosene lanterns, and after several failed attempts, they had them fired up and shining brightly. Rummaging around in the cupboards as Arnold went to find some more camping equipment, Helga managed to find some dry snacks that they could eat, should they need to.  
  
"I found Grandpa's old Coleman camping stove, if we decide to cook something tonight." Helga looked up as Arnold returned. "Any luck finding more batteries? This flashlight takes the C types, I think."  
  
"Um . . ." Helga said before opening a few drawers and finally finding the batteries he needed. She reached over to hand them to him, but a loud boom of thunder made her freeze and she dropped them. They landed on the linoleum with a small clunk and began to roll away.  
  
"Helga? Why do you hate thunderstorms so much?" She heard him ask as he picked up the runaway batteries. "I personally think they're neat."  
  
"Well you're crazy." She said as she took a seat at the table and clasped her shaking hands together. "I've always hated them, for as long as I can remember. They're not fun when you're little and you get stuck in one by yourself." Rain pounded at the kitchen windows and Helga listened for a moment to the howling wind. "When your grandmother said a bad storm was coming, yeesh, she meant it. I'll never doubt her bones again."  
  
"Grandma was here? When?" Arnold asked as he took a seat across the table, the candles casting interesting shadows on his face. She looked up at him and shrugged a little.  
  
"She came by this afternoon to get some different clothes. She and your grandpa will be back on Tuesday." She said, repeating what Gertie had told her. "You know, she's one crazy old woman, but . . ." Arnold rolled his eyes and rested his chin in his hands.  
  
"You don't have to tell me. I live with her, remember? She's constantly running around in these crazy getups." Arnold said, his tone a mixture of disbelief and exasperation. "One day she'll be a knight, the next she's a cheerleader, and sometimes she's even in a kimono. That's usually when she serves me and Grandpa watermelon sushi." He said with another eye roll. "And she's always calling me by with weirdest names. Sometimes I'm Tex, if she's in a cowgirl costume, and sometimes I'm Kimba. Don't ask me what Kimba means, I have no idea."  
  
"I think he's a jungle warrior." Helga said and Arnold goggled at her. "Your grandmother plays word games, I think. She kept calling me Eleanor, or something, as in Eleanor Roosevelt, which I thought was rather odd. Sure, I may be head strong like her, but . . ." She noticed Arnold had titled his head to one side in a questioning manner and she trailed off.  
  
"So you think the names she calls people by have a deeper meaning?" Helga nodded slowly. "Huh . . . that's kind of cool." She watched in confusion as he bit his lip. "Do you know who a Lady Godiva was? And if you do, what do you think that means if Grandma called someone that?" Helga thought for a moment, trying to remember whom that woman was. Then it clicked.  
  
"Lady Godiva is a woman who went insane and rode a horse around her village while completely naked." Helga almost laughed at the expression on Arnold's face; his eyes looked about ready to bug out of his head. "As for what it means . . . well, she was apparently very beautiful, so I guess if your grandma called someone that, it means what's on the outside doesn't necessarily fit what's on the inside. You should be wary of that person, because it's very likely that her beautiful outside hides something not so nice on the inside."  
  
"You . . . you really think so?" Arnold coughed, sounding as though she'd dealt him quite a blow.  
  
"Or it could just be that your grandmother thinks this person is insane for the things she does. What she could be saying is that the girl doesn't act like a normal human being, despite her beauty." Helga said after a moment of thought. "Anyway, what I was about to say before you interrupted me, football head, was that I think your grandmother is neat."  
  
"You think . . . that she's . . . she's neat?" She looked up at him and frowned; he seemed confused by this fact.  
  
"So? She's a whole lot more interesting than my so-called guardians are. I mean, you actually have people who take an active interest in your life. My parents are either obsessed about money or my sister, or they're completely gone on smoothies." She said, not trying to conceal the bitterness and jealousy she felt. "So yeah, I think your grandma is neat. It makes me wish I had someone like her to talk to."  
  
"You're probably the only person who thinks so." Arnold said, awe in his voice. Helga gave him a look.  
  
"Well? What about you? Don't you think she's neat?"  
  
"I love her a lot and all, but . . ." He trailed off and met her gaze. "I think she's just plain crazy." There was another crack of lightning overhead, illuminating the kitchen with a brilliant flash. Helga winced, her shivers returning as thunder followed shortly. "Um, do you remember how we got on this topic?"  
  
"You were asking if your grandmother had been here, and I was saying yes, and things went from there. Crimeny, football head, you've got a memory as bad as Miriam's." She said as she rubbed her arms. "So you've got to stick it out with me until Tuesday. Hope you don't mind, because I'm staying as long as I can. Otherwise Olga's story will be blown."  
  
"Your sister was here?"  
  
"How else would I have gotten my stuff? I couldn't have left you alone with that fever. Who knows what might've happened." Helga frowned slightly at the expression on his face. He looked like he was both stunned and amazed at the same time. "What? What's wrong, Arnoldo?"  
  
"Uh, how long have I had a fever?"  
  
"I've been here since Thursday, so two days, I guess." She said while counting on her fingers. Her frown deepened as his eyes widened slowly. "What is it now? Why do you look so surprised?"  
  
"You . . . you actually took care of me for two days straight?" He asked, his mouth hanging open slightly. She couldn't help the glare that was forming, but this line of questioning was beginning to get annoying.  
  
"Well, duh, hair boy. Don't you remember anything that has happened?" He shook his head slowly.  
  
"The last clear memory I have is when I felt like I'd been put in a washing machine. You know, when I ran into you on the street and started acting dizzy? And from there it's really fuzzy." Helga stared at him and it was his turn to shift uncomfortably.  
  
"You can't be serious." She asked, her mouth falling open slightly. "You don't remember waking up and coming downstairs twice? Both times you wound up asleep, but that's another story entirely."  
  
"I'm afraid so." He said as he reached for a bag of half-eaten pretzels. "So do you mind filling me in? I'd sort of like to know why you actually stayed to help me get well. I always thought you hated me." Helga gave him a look as he started munching on the pretzels.  
  
"You think I'd let you stay here, on your own, and die from a fever? I had to keep giving you medicine to take down your temperature, and I'm sure if I hadn't, you wouldn't be with us right now." He dropped the pretzel he was holding in surprise. "Come on, football head, I don't hate you enough to actually kill you. Besides, you took care of me for a while, didn't you? I was paying you back."  
  
"You always could've taken me to a hospital." He said and she folded her arms over her chest.  
  
"Isn't your grandpa already in the hospital? I doubt you could actually afford the hospital bills for two people." She said as she reached across the table for the pretzels. "Besides, Dr. Smith said your condition wasn't too dangerous, so long as someone was there to watch over you." She bit into a slightly stale pretzel before looking at Arnold. "And what's your point with this? Why does it matter so much to you?" He was silent for a moment, looking her directly in the eye.  
  
"You know, the more I try to understand you, the harder it gets."  
  
"So quit trying. We already discussed this, Arnoldo, and I told you. I don't try and make sense to people; things are easier that way." She tossed the rest of the pretzel into her mouth before reaching for another. "So do you want to know what has happened since your collapse on Thursday, or not?"  
  
"Helga . . ." He said with a sigh and she looked up at him with a small glare.  
  
"What? Hey!" He'd snatched the pretzel bag from her, his expression a serious sort of glare. There was a slightly drawn out silence that made Helga a little uneasy. "Hair boy, I already told you my reasons for staying here and making sure you lived to see today. What more do you want from me?"  
  
"An honest answer! It seems that no matter how hard I try, all that I get from you are some mixed up responses that don't even make sense! You just spent the last two days by my side, making sure that I didn't die from a fever, and yes, I find that incredible. And you know why? Because it doesn't make sense!" He said, his voice raised with emotion, and lightning struck outside.  
  
"Helga, you're someone who isn't ever nice to anyone, and most of the time you lead me to believe that you don't care about anything but yourself. So why?" Only the roll of thunder and the howling winds interrupted the silence that fell between them. "Why . . . why would you do so much for someone whom you care about so very little?" He asked, the note of desperation in his voice making Helga look down at her hands. She couldn't meet that demanding gaze of his; she just couldn't.  
  
"Arnold . . ." She began, trying to think of something to say. "You already know why. What else can I possibly say?" She looked up at him in time to catch him sigh and lean back against his chair.  
  
"Helga, I think . . ." He met her gaze, his expression as determined as ever. "I think we really need to talk."  
  
*~*~*  
  
Well, that's a good enough place to stop for now. What do you think is going to happen next? So is Helga going to have to tell him all over again? And what are they going to talk about? You're just going to have to wait, and don't forget to answer those questions! I'll try really really hard to write and get the next chapter up soon!  
  
Love forever and ever: pottergal 


	7. Masks Peeled Away

My god, I'm sorry that this took so long for me to update, but I haven't had time to write this as well as I'd like it!!! So I offer a formal apology to everyone who reads this fic, and enough with my blither. Read on!

Love forever and ever:

pottergal

PS. I don't own Hey Arnold! Blah.

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A Rainy December

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Chapter Seven: Masks Peeled Away

By: pottergal

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Arnold sat in the kitchen of the darkened boarding house, surrounded by softly lit candles and one bright kerosene lantern. In the interests of getting the most light possible from it, he'd placed it atop the refrigerator, where it shone cheerily onto an otherwise gloomy room. It was storm outside was truly doing its worst, the rain lashing angrily against the windows, and the wind howling as it whipped around the house. Occasionally, a crack of lightning with a boom of thunder close behind would break the otherwise monotonous trend.

And so Arnold sat, wrapped up in the spare blanket normally used by Gerald on his sleepovers, his slippered feet dangling above the kitchen floor. He sat, frowning though the candlelight at the other person sitting in the seat across from him. Helga stared back at him, though her expression wasn't a normal glower or smirk. Instead, she looked tired. Perhaps a little annoyed as well, but overall, she looked worn out.

"So you say we need to talk. But what about?" She asked, and he could see faint tremors running through her as she grappled with her fear of thunderstorms. "What is there to say?" It was a good point, and one that Arnold hadn't quite worked out yet. He had so many things he wanted to quiz her on, but mostly he wanted straight answers from her.

"Let me start with this question." He began before pressing his lips into a thin line as he tried hard to think of the best way to ask it. "The person that you are when we're at school . . . that's not the real you, is it?" He asked, absently chewing at the inside of his cheek in thought. Had that been what he'd meant to ask?

"What do you mean, that's not the real me? Of course it is, football head. Why wouldn't it be?" She snapped peevishly but a crack of lightning rang out overhead, silencing her and making her clamp her hands over her ears. Arnold watched curiously and then smiled a little.

"The Helga who's at school isn't afraid of anything, even thunderstorms. The Helga at school wouldn't stop and give me a second thought if I collapsed in a heap infront of her." He said and watched her gaze inch its way across the table towards him. "The Helga that shows her angry face every day certainly wouldn't stay by my side for two days, making sure I stayed alive." Their gazes finally met and Arnold noted trace amounts of fear in her shocked blue eyes. "Nor would that Helga help me and Gerald save this neighborhood." He added as an afterthought.

"That's how I know that the face you show the general world isn't the true you, Helga. It can't be." She opened her mouth to retort angrily, but lightning struck again, effectively cutting her off and forcing her to clamp her hands back down on her ears. Once the thunder had finished echoing, Arnold began to speak again. 

"This is something that has been puzzling me for a while now; if you really were such a bad person, why would Phoebe remain by your side? And then it hit me." Her gaze returned to meet his and he drew a deep breath. "She must see something that no one else sees, that no one else is _allowed _to see. I realized that she must be the only person to know the Helga that exists apart from the person we all know in public."

"And I then realized she must be good." He said softly and noted Helga's wide-eyed expression. "Why else would Phoebe stay best friends with you, even after all these years? How else would you be capable of all these amazing things, if you didn't have some good to you?" She opened her mouth to speak again, but there was a new look to her eyes, one that resonated with Arnold. It held the same emotion as that chained girl from his dream, the one who he had freed. And he could sense that he was close to doing something similar with the Helga before him.

"You can't be serious, football head! Just listen to yourself! Do you know how crazy you sound?" She said, but he heard something different. He heard the words from the song the girl had sung in the dream, and now they distinctly said, _find me._ "Me? Able to do good? Ha! You know, that's the biggest joke I've ever heard, Arnoldo!"

"No it's not." He said patiently. He had to keep going, keep pressing; he'd find her, he knew that he would. "I know she's there, the person you keep from everyone, the person you hide within yourself." Helga shut her mouth slowly, and he could definitely see fear in her eyes now. "Why are you so scared of showing who you are? What have you got to lose? You stand to gain your own happiness." He watched her through the candlelight, and after a moment, she looked away and sighed.

"You don't know what it's like, Arnold." She said softly, her gaze fixed on the floor. "You live so wonderfully, surrounded by those who love you more than anything, and would do almost anything to make sure you're happy." Her tone . . . he recognized it the moment he heard it, and he knew that he'd finally broken down enough of her walls to get the real Helga to come out.

"And you don't?" He said softly, acting as though she were a timid creature and any sudden movements would scare her off. "What about your sister? From what you told me, she sounded nice. She brought you your clothes and things, didn't she? And she brought a doctor to see me. She loves you, doesn't she?"

"Her and Phoebe . . . aren't I lucky, Arnoldo? Two whole people out of how many? Billions?" Arnold could've kicked himself; her sarcasm was back. That meant a wall had been rebuilt. "Two people out of the entire population who would care if I suddenly died. I feel so very special."

"You don't have to act like that, you know." He said, trying to find another way to bring her back out. "Now that I know it's just a mask, you don't have to hide around me, Helga." She looked at him, her expression suspicious and fearful. "Why can't you trust me? I just want to get to know who you really are. You've remained a mystery to me for so long."

"Why should I trust you?" She snapped. "You're just some stupid . . . football head." She said, lashing out verbally. Arnold sighed inwardly; with each passing comment, he could see her struggling to rebuild everything that he'd torn down, trying hard to protect that inner person again.

"Do you mind if I tell you about a dream I had over the past few days, Helga?" He said, deciding to try a different track. "It was about this girl who was chained to a log in this forest, all by herself. Since she was all alone, she'd sing these beautiful, yet extremely sad songs to pass the time and to express herself. When I got there, she said she'd called me through her singing and asked me to set her free." He noticed Helga was frowning, clearly trying to figure out where he was going with his story.

"So I did my best, and in the end, I did get her free. And then she told me a secret. You know what she said?" He paused for a moment and watched Helga shrug. "She said that the reasons her songs were so sad was because she'd been trapped there for six long years. She'd been chained away, locked behind masks and walls, to keep people from finding her." He noticed Helga had blinked slightly, her mouth moving silently around the words 'six years'.

"But her secret," he continued, "her deepest and most precious secret was that I was the only one who could really get her out. I was the only one who could see her behind everything that had been put up in the way, and I was the only one who could finally bring her out." He noticed Helga was staring at him as he finished, her eyes wide.

"Why . . ." She began, but her voice failed her and Arnold noticed a faint sheen to her eyes. He blinked then, as she covered her face with her hands and put her head down on the table. Frowning, he slid off the chair and walked cautiously to her side.

"Helga? Are you . . ." He said in a hushed voice, but trailed off as he heard a faint sob. Shame filled him then. "Oh, Helga, I'm so sorry . . . I . . . I didn't mean to . . ." He began, unsure of what he should say.

"You didn't mean to what?" She said, her voice muffled by her arms. He sighed a little, biting his lip in uncertainty. She lifted her head slowly and looked over at him, and he hung his head. "You didn't mean to make me cry? Well, I'll tell you what, you certainly did. You want to know why I never show my so-called true self to anyone? It's for this very reason, football head!" He frowned in confusion and looked up at her.

"What do you mean?"

"You always do this to me, don't you? You always manage to find some way to get through, and it's because of your stupid ideas that everyone is really good at heart. You wanna know why I never am nice to anyone? Why I'm so cruel and heartless sometimes? Why I push people around and play all those dumb pranks on you?" Tears flowed down her cheeks freely now, startling him.

"Helga, I'm . . ." He began, but she cut him off.

"You're what? Sorry? Well, it's too late now, bucko!" She snapped harshly, her voice choked with anger and tears. "You just had to keep poking at me, didn't you? You just had to know what made me work, what made me think the way I think, didn't you? You had to have your reason, why mean old Helga Pataki could be so nice sometimes. You just really had to know."

"Helga . . ."

"Shut up!" She yelled as she pounded a fist on the table, making him shut his mouth with a sharp click. "Just so you can be happy and go on your merry little way, yes, it's true! The way I act, how nasty I am, how snide and horrible and cruel I behave is all just one mask hiding everything!" She shouted as she buried her face in her hands.

"I'm just one big huge lie, made to drive people away so they won't ever bother me, they won't ever care." She said through her sobs. "I don't want them to care because I don't want to care about them! I'll only get hurt and rejected!" Though part of him felt horrible for pushing things quite so far, Arnold couldn't help the small smile that rose to his lips. He reached up then, and gently pried away her hands from her face.

"Helga, what makes you think you'll be hurt?" She blinked at him in surprise as he took her hands in his and then began to wipe away some of her tears. "Hm? Why do you think you'll be rejected all the time? If you be yourself, you've got nothing to lose." She sniffed slightly, tears still pooling in her eyes.

"You see why I say I can't ever win with you? Somehow you manage to break down everything." She said quietly. "How is it that you can see people behind their masks when others don't even bother to look? I'm sure people like Gerald or Sid don't take the time to wonder if there's another person inside everyone." She hiccuped and tried to wipe away some of the tears.

"I don't normally, but for some reason . . ." He looked at her intently, and she stared back, her expression sad. "Some reason I couldn't let go of you. There were just too many things about you that didn't make sense, like the way you'd help me sometimes and then annoy me to death."

"I was trying to drive you away, like I'd done with everyone else." She said softly, her voice still sad and slightly uneven from her crying. "I was always afraid that you'd find out . . ." She trailed off and looked away.

"Find out what? That you weren't the big, tough bully that everyone says you are?" She shrugged and he couldn't help smiling more. " Were you afraid that I would peel away that mask of anger and then hate the person I saw? Helga, if you know anything about me, it's that I'm not like that." She looked at him, her expression so very heart wrenching that he couldn't take it anymore.

"Please don't look at me like that, Helga. I hate seeing anyone so sad." She laughed then, a small sharp laugh, but a laugh just the same. "So could you tell me why you hid yourself for all these years? Could you tell me why you never let anyone get close?" She looked at him for a moment in silence and he stared back, determined to get an answer from her.

"If I'm going to tell you, you're going to have to sit down first." He blinked as she slid off her chair and sat him down in it. "My story is a long one, so while I tell it, I'll heat up the left over pasta from the lunch your grandmother made." He let her work for a while without pestering her, getting the pasta out of the tupperware container it had been in and heating it over the little portable Coleman stove. Once she handed him a bowl with a fork and a glass of water and had seated herself across from him, she drew a deep breath.

"You know, it's creepy how close that dream of yours was to what actually goes on with me. Somehow . . . I just knew this day would come." She said, her eyes focused intently on the tabletop. "I knew you would finally worm your way to the truth about me, and yes . . . I was scared that . . ." She looked up at him and their eyes met. "I was scared that you . . . you wouldn't like me. So I was determined to make it so you wouldn't like me enough to even start wondering and questioning in the first place. But . . . I guess I was wrong, wasn't I."

"So you hide out of fear?" Arnold asked as he ate a few noodles and took a sip of water. "Fear of what?"

"What do you think? Fear of being rejected." She said with an angry frown. "Not everyone is as nice and accepting as you are, Arnold, and especially not my family. You . . . you have no idea what it's like, to have parents like mine." For some reason, that hit a sore spot with Arnold.

"At least you have yours. I'd be grateful to just have parents." She gave him a look as he took another sip of water.

"You want to try living my life, football head? Because I'd gladly switch with you in an instant." She said as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Do you think everything I've done publicly is because I _want_ to? No, it's been carefully planned out to serve some purpose, be it pleasing my father who wants me to be a second Olga, or to prove to everyone what a horrible person I am. Everything I do in the eye of the people is to strengthen my mask."

"To hide yourself even more." Arnold murmured and she looked away. "But . . . why? Why don't you just try being yourself?"

"Don't you get it at all?" She snapped back at him, her expression a mixture of amazement and sorrow. He met her gaze as steadily as he could and a moment or two of silence passed between them. "Arnold, I can't ever be myself unless I'm alone. You know why? Because no one wants to see the real Helga, everyone wants to see the mask, so that's what I give them."

"Are you really that shallow, Helga?" He asked her with slight astonishment and she looked away again. "Do you really care what everyone else thinks of you? The only opinion that matters is your own."

"I don't have your confidence, Arnoldo." She said softly and her gaze crept towards him again. "You . . . you have people you can always talk to and they'll always try to understand, no matter what you say. You have wonderful, loving grandparents who encourage you every step of the way, and make sure to tell you how much you mean to them." She looked up at his face and he blinked. There were tears in her eyes again.

"Do you think I get any of that, any encouragement, any love?" She said, a note of desperation and bitterness in her voice. " Oh sure, I'll occasionally get a 'good job', but that's only if I'm really lucky. The only one of my accomplishments that has ever been acknowledged has to be when I helped you stop Scheck, but even that blew over in about an hour. And then in was back to polishing Olga's trophies for me." She drew a deep shaky breath before shutting her eyes.

"So you see now? You see why I've stayed hidden for so long?" She said, her voice barely above a whisper. "No one cares about the real me . . . in fact, no one even remotely _likes_ the real me. I learned that when I was very little; I learned that no one would like me if I followed my heart. So I created the mask, to keep people away." She snorted a little.

  
"And look at how well that turned out. I have no one I can talk to, no one I can confide in, and just look at how happy I am." She sighed. "I know, I know, you're going to bring up Phoebe, aren't you? Well, truth is, I haven't told Phoebe even a little bit of this. Heck, why am I even telling it to you?" She said as she opened her eyes and slumped against the back of the chair.

"Because you knew I would care." Arnold said simply and she stared at him. "You knew that I actually wanted to hear it, that I would listen without interrupting. And without making judgements." He gave her a small smile.

"Because that's what you do, right?" She said, though her voice said she already knew the answer. "That is what you do, after all. You're the great problem solver and advice giver; nothing is beyond your grasp, you can fix anything." She said with a small sneer but then she sighed. "You know how much I've wanted your insight? I've always felt that my life would be as easy as yours if I could only see what you see."

"You think my life is easy?" He asked in disbelief and she nodded. "Helga, my life isn't a piece of cake either, you know. I have my fair share of problems, I just don't go around parading them for everyone to see." She looked at him skeptically.

"Really? Oh do tell, Arnold. I'm dying to hear just how much more you like Lila and how frustrated you are that she won't like you like you. Or what about a little fight with Gerald, one that is quite obviously fixable?" She said before rolling her eyes. "If _your_ life is hard, then my life must be hell, wouldn't you say?"

"You don't know what you're talking about, Helga. You don't know me." He said defensively. "There are a lot of things I have that I can't go to anyone with, not Gerald, and not even my grandparents." She gave him a rather surprised look. "I'm not perfect, Helga. I make mistakes like everyone else, and I have difficulties like everyone else. So what if they aren't obvious? No one needs to know about them."

"You . . . you really have things that you keep from everyone?" She asked softly and he nodded.

"Of course I do. What, did you think I was a saint or something? Untouched by normal human problems?" He asked and she looked at him silently. "Helga, are you crazy? I've lost both of my parents. I barely even remember them. Did you think that never bothered me?" There was yet another pause in their conversation, and finally Helga spoke.

"I guess, Arnold . . . I guess we have a lot more in common than I'd ever thought." She said softly and he blinked, a new realization dawning on him. His mouth must've been open or something, because she frowned at him. "What? What's with the face?"

"It makes sense now." He said and her frown deepened. "No, don't ask anything just yet; I'll explain." He held up a hand to forestall any questions she might have. "What you just said . . . it makes everything fit into place for me. You see, I'd been wondering why . . . why I just couldn't ever seem to let go of your actions, why you fascinated me so much." Helga shook her head absently, a small half-smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

"You know why, Helga? Because we _are_ a lot alike." She blinked and gave him an odd look. "I'm sure that sometimes when you're with huge crowds of people, haven't you felt just so . . . so . . ." He grimaced, he couldn't think of the proper word to express what he was feeling.

"Deserted?" She said softly and he looked at her; that word had fit his emotions exactly. "Like no one around you could possibly begin to understand the thoughts in your head or the problems you're dealing with." He nodded slowly, completely in awe of how well her description had fit. "Sure, most of the time you're too distracted to think about it, but there comes that one moment, and suddenly it hits you like a ton of bricks that . . ."

"You're all alone, and even the few people you do trust . . ." He said, looking at her. Her deep blue eyes met his intense green ones, and as they looked at eachother, each felt a chord of some sort had been struck.

"They can't ever understand what you're feeling." She finished the thread of thought quietly. His eyes searched her face through the candlelight, the gentle glow softening her features and making her look more like the girl from his dreams, the one with the radiant smile.

"So the reason you tried so hard to bring me out, to force me to show who I really am was because you could subconsciously tell that about me?" She said after a moment and he nodded slowly in agreement. "It was so you could have someone just like yourself, someone who understood what it's like sometimes to be so . . . so alone?"

"I guess so." They continued to look at eachother through the soft light, each slowly processing everything that had just occurred. Part of Arnold was even wondering if it had even happened, if this wasn't just another deranged dream of his. Finally, he tore his gaze from her face and he pinched his arm as hard as he dared.

"Ouch!" He exclaimed and he noticed Helga blinked.

"What . . . why did you just do that?" She asked in confusion, and he looked up at her sheepishly.

"I was worried that this might actually be a dream or something, because you'll have to admit that this whole event seems pretty crazy." He said and she started giggling. It was a strange sound, but mostly it was because Helga rarely laughed or showed any emotion besides anger. "What's so funny?"

"You are." She said with a smile, and he couldn't help smiling in return. Her laughter was infectious. "I don't know why, but only you would pinch yourself after such a serious conversation." He opened his mouth to say something back, but there was another loud hum and the lights flickered back on.

"Dare we to hope that they stay?" Arnold said as he started blowing out candles. He watched Helga shrug as she started helping him. She moved the lantern down from atop the fridge and clicked it off before setting it on the table. Arnold finished with the candles and set them all beside the sink before taking his pasta plate and setting it in the sink.

"Don't bother washing them, I'll do them tomorrow morning because right now I'm about to fall over. I'm so tired." She said while swallowing a yawn. "I'm going to go to sleep, okay?" He turned to her and nodded slightly as she started to walk from the kitchen.

"Where have you been sleeping?" He asked as he followed her and turned off the kitchen light behind them.

"Where else? On that couch in your room, whenever I managed to get a moment or two. I think it's safe for you to assume that I haven't slept much over the past few days." She said with another yawn as they started up the first flight of stairs. Arnold double checked to make sure the front door was locked and then clicked off the light in the landing.

"Do you want me to get you a sleeping bag? I'm sure you're going to need it, and an extra pillow." She shrugged as they passed the hall closet and taking that as a yes, Arnold opened it and began rummaging around. After a moment, he finally found one of each item, and then shut the door. When he looked towards his room, he saw Helga waiting for him on the stairs.

"I have been using a blanket that I found, but thanks for finding the sleeping bag." She said as he neared and handed it to her. As she walked up the final flight to his room, he clicked off the hall light. "You always think of everything, don't you." She said as he entered his room and he watched her curl up on the couch, the sleeping bag wrapped around her.

"I try to." He said and she smiled faintly. "Helga, there's one more thing I've been wondering about and I want to ask you before you go to sleep." She opened her eyes and looked at him questioningly.

"Anyone ever tell you that you wonder too much?" He couldn't help but smile and she waved her hand. "Well, ask me, football head, before I pass out."

"The reason you stayed with me . . . does it have anything to do with that . . . that conversation we had a while back?" She frowned slightly, and he bit his lip. Did he really want to bring this up right now? "You know . . . I know you remember. The one we had on top the FTi building?"

"Oh." She said, her face suddenly hard to read. "That one." She drew a deep breath and arranged the sleeping bag around her more tightly. Arnold waited for a moment, but eventually he couldn't hold back his curiosity.

"Well? Does it?" He pressed and she looked up at him. Their gazes met for the briefest of instances . . . and Arnold knew.

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Arnold awoke Sunday morning, the sun lighting up his room more than he'd liked at that moment, but he yawned and stretched as he sat up slowly. He rubbed his eyes for a moment to get rid of the sleep still in them and then he looked around his room slowly. Helga was there, still curled beneath the sleeping bag, but she was on the floor instead of the couch, and to Arnold's surprise, Abner was curled up beside her, and the two were sleeping peacefully.

Slipping slowly from his bed, Arnold slid his feet into his slippers and crept over to the two of them. Abner gave a sleepy grunt as he approached and looked up at him before putting his head back down and curling closer to Helga's warmth. Arnold smiled a little as he scratched behind Abner's ears fondly and watched Helga open her eyes sleepily. She blinked up at him a little bit before realizing where she was.

"Ar . . . Arnold?" She mumbled a little before pushing herself up. Abner gave a snort of surprise as she moved and then yawned loudly. Helga laughed a little at the pig and then patted his head affectionately. "You dumb pig, you know how much you kept me up last night?" She said with a smile and Abner rested his head in her lap.

"Abner really likes you, Helga." He said and she rolled her eyes, her hand still petting the pig's head. "He doesn't act this way around Gerald or my grandparents, that's for sure, probably because Grandma wants to fry him up half the time."

"He's quite a pet, football head. I personally couldn't believe you slept through the noise he was making last night. First it seemed like he was trying to break the door down to get inside, and then he was all muddy, so I had to at least clean him off a little. You wouldn't believe the mess he made in the kitchen, but I was too tired to clean it up."

"It seems you were too tired to get mad at him." She shrugged.

"I normally don't like animals, but he grew on me. I couldn't stay mad at him, especially when he'd give me that look of his. I'm sure you know which one I'm talking about; the one where his eyes get all big and sad?" She said as Abner stood up and licked her cheek. She laughed and pushed him off gently. "Stop that, or I may have to hand you over to Gertie when she gets home!" Abner looked at her for a moment and then licked her cheek again.

"Who's Gertie?" Arnold asked as he drew Abner into his arms to get him off Helga. She wiped her cheek absently before giving Abner's head one last pat and then she stood slowly, stretching.

"Your grandmother. Who else would she be?" She said, picking up the sleeping bag and tossing it onto the couch. "Why don't we go downstairs and then you can take a look at the damage your pet has done." She said as she opened the door to his room and Abner wriggled from his arms and raced after her.

"You think you're getting something to eat, do you?" Arnold heard Helga say as he started to follow her and he saw Abner following her closely, his expression one of expectancy. "Well, not until that kitchen is free of mud and dirt, piggy. Then I'll think about feeding you." Abner oinked in response as he rubbed against her legs. "What are you, a puppy?" She said with a laugh as she started down the stairs and Arnold couldn't help the smile.

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Seems that I was right . . . a nice Helga does exist. He thought to himself as he started down the stairs to the first floor. He could see light coming from the kitchen and as he walked in, he was completely floored.

"ABNER!" He shouted angrily and watched the pig squeal and run behind Helga. She was looking at him with an 'I told you so' expression and Arnold glared at his pet. "What in the world did you do?" Mud was everywhere, covering nearly everything with splotches and little piggy hoof prints. Chairs had been over turned and the tablecloth was in a muddy heap on the floor. Several of the cabinets had been opened, their food contents spilling over the linoleum from ripped packages. All in all, it looked as though the kitchen had been hit by a muddy tornado.

"Did you think I'd been exaggerating?" Helga asked, her expression one of slight disbelief. Arnold groaned as he righted a chair and plopped down into it. This was going to take forever to clean up . . .

"Come here, Abner." Helga said and soon she'd scooped up the pig into her arms. Carrying him over to Arnold, she held him out and Arnold glared. "Abner is sorry, Arnold. See?" The pig looked up at him with his pleading, sorry eyes and Arnold felt it hard to hold his glare. Finally he sighed and took the pig from Helga. Abner licked his cheek gently and Arnold laughed a little.

"Why'd you have to go and do that, Helga? He won't learn discipline if I can't stay angry." He stood up, Abner still in his arms, and then walked to the back door. After unlocking it, he opened it and set Abner down. "And I think Helga's punishment is fitting; we're not going to feed you until after the kitchen is clean." He gave Abner a little push and he trotted outside reluctantly. "It won't take us that long; just go out and play." He then shut the door gently and turned to Helga before sighing.

"You ready to clean, football head?" He sighed a little more as she started for the closet with the cleaning supplies.

"Whenever you are, Helga."

It took the two of them a good chunk of the morning to clean the kitchen, and about half way through, they ran out of cleaning solution. Since she was the one who was dressed, Helga brushed her hair quickly and ran down to the general store to get some more. While she was out, Arnold took the opportunity to change out of his pajamas and soon Helga returned shortly with plenty of solution to finish the job.

As time trickled by, neither he nor Helga had said a word about their conversation the night before and frankly, Arnold felt slightly relieved. Part of him didn't know quite how to deal with everything he'd learned, and he had a feeling Helga was still recovering from the shock of having her mask ripped away. So they'd cleaned in relative silence, Arnold silently processing the information. One of them would occasionally strike up a nonchalant conversation, but neither were tempted to bring up their previous one just yet.

Noon rolled around and Arnold couldn't help grinning; the kitchen was spotless. Helga was down in the basement, actually hand washing the tablecloth. It was fine linen, and since she seemed to know a thing or two about caring for delicate material, Arnold didn't question her decision. He could hear the splashes of water that drifted up from the basement and he decided to make something for them to eat. After, of course, he fed Abner.

The little pig was still waiting outside the back door when Arnold opened it, and much to his surprise, Abner didn't have a spot of mud on him. He'd given Arnold that sorrowful look of his as he rubbed up against his leg, and Arnold couldn't help but smile.

"It's okay, Abner, I already forgave you." He said as he reached down to pet the pig fondly. "Just don't ever do that again, all right?" Abner grunted as they walked into the kitchen and Arnold began to make Abner his lunch.

"And now to make us something." He murmured as he set down Abner's dish and started for the fridge. As Arnold rummaged around, looking for something edible, he heard footsteps behind him and looked up to see Helga entering the kitchen, a big basin and the tablecloth in her grasp.

"I'm taking this outside to dry, all right, football head?" She said and he walked over to open the back door for her. "And good luck trying to find anything in there; from what I saw, most of it is rotten." Then she hooked a foot around the door, making it close behind her. Arnold sighed before turning back to the fridge; it seemed she was right and it was a hopeless case.

__

Can't make sandwiches because there's no meat and the jelly went bad a while ago. Arnold thought as he opened the jelly jar and blanched at the horrendous smell. _I never thought jellies could actually spoil . . . _The lettuce was completely withered, most of the milk and cheese had putrefied, and it just got worse from there. How his grandmother actually managed to find anything to cook was beyond him.

"I'll go shopping for groceries if you want, Arnoldo." He looked up as Helga came back into the house, wiping her feet before she walked onto the newly cleaned floor. "Olga gave me her credit card and told me to use it for supplies that I need, and I'd say that food is a pretty important supply, wouldn't you?" Arnold bit his lip a little as he thought.

"Helga, you don't have to do that. I'll just go down to the corner store or something." He said and she shook her head.

"Look, you're the one who just got over a very nasty fever, and I don't want you tiring yourself out just yet. So that means you're staying here regardless of what we decide to do, and I'll make sure of that, even if I have to tie you to a chair or something." She said sternly as she folded her arms over her chest. "I don't want to have you sick again, especially since Christmas is coming up." She frowned at him and Arnold held up his hands.

"Okay, okay, I'm not going anywhere. We've just agreed on that." He said and moved to take a seat at the table. He watched with a frown as Helga began to rummage around in a drawer beside the sink and soon she tossed him a pen and a pad of paper. "What's this for?" He asked, his frown deepening as he caught the two things.

"Make me a list; I'm not going to go to the store without one." She said as she began to walk out of the kitchen. "Have it done when I come back downstairs, and then I'll go to the supermarket."

"Helga, but that's halfway across town! How are you going to get there?" He called after her and she poked her head back into the kitchen. "You can't be thinking of taking the bus, can you?"

"What else do you suggest I do? I don't drive, football head." She said while frowning at him. "I know what I'm doing, Arnoldo. I've gone to the grocery store before by taking bus, and I've managed to get home with everything that I bought too. And besides, I'm not shopping for every little necessity. I'm just going to get enough to last until Tuesday morning when your grandparents show back up." He frowned at her and she grinned.

"So relax, hair boy, everything has been taken care of." He rolled his eyes at her and she gave him a look. "Just make that list, all right? Think of things we can make for dinner today and tomorrow and anything else you'd like." She called as she started to walk away again.

"All right, all right." He muttered before tucking the pen behind his ear and walking over to the fridge. What could he put on here that they really needed? "Milk, that's something to start with." He said as he pulled out the fermented bottle. "Ug, doesn't Grandma throw anything away?"

*~*~*

Yes, yes, I know, what a place to stop, huh. Hope this chapter wasn't too out there for people, and that it actually was sort of . . . oh I don't know. I know that the last part was kinda dumb, (sighs), but I couldn't think of anything that I really wanted to put there. Let's just say it's lighthearted to balance out the first part, which is sort of heavy. What I think is funny is that this chapter had been planned completely different, but isn't writing crazy that way?

Gah, let's see if the next chapter, which is the last chapter can work itself out of me faster than the last one. :\

Love forever and ever:

pottergal


	8. Friends?

Okay, we're now on the eight chapter. Ug, this is the shortest chapter of the story, and it also (unfortunately) seems to be the last. I've exhausted my ideas for this fic, so I've tried to write the best ending I could, keeping in mind that this fic was not meant to be mushy. Hey, I warned you from the start that this wasn't going to be a mushy gushy fic, so don't complain now!

Before we go any further, I'd like to apologize for the enormous and ridiculous amount of time it has taken me to post this last chapter. I'd also like to say a huge THANK YOU to every single one of my wonderful reviewers and to the following people:

Sylvia Sylverton   
Andrea   
midnightoasis   
DarthRoden (aka. Carl)   
AuAu 

And of course, my best friends, evilmayo and Q.o.U. (don't ask about the names, it'd take too long to explain.)

All of these wonderful people read my last chapter and gave me great feedback. I couldn't have done this without you guys, so thanks again!

Love forever and ever:

pottergal

PS. Disclaimers still apply, and so on and so forth. Another blah to you.

*~*~*

~~~~**~~~~**~~~~**~~~~

A Rainy December

__

Chapter Eight: Friends?

By: pottergal

~~~~**~~~~**~~~~**~~~~

*~*~*

Tuesday morning came far too fast for Helga's liking, and it came despite her wishes. The sun peeked over the edge of Arnold's skylight ceiling, hitting her directly on her face, and of course waking her. She grumbled to herself angrily as she opened her eyes drowsily and rolled over away from the sunlight. She was sleeping on the floor in the thick blue sleeping bag Arnold had found for her, with Abner curled up beside her. As she moved, he gave a sleepy grunt and lifted his head to give her a glare.

"Oh stuff it, piggy." She said softly as she buried her face in her pillow and tried to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, she was now awake and she pushed herself up with a faint 'hmph'. Abner stood up and stretched as Helga moved to a kneeling position, but then he made three small circles and curled back up into a ball. "Sorry for disturbing you, your majesty." She whispered sarcastically as she started working out the kinks in her neck.

__

I can't believe that it's actually Tuesday . . . She thought, part of her saddened by this fact. She sighed to herself as her gaze landed on the sleeping Arnold and a smile brightened her sleep-rumpled features. He really was the most amazing person she'd ever met, there wasn't any doubt there.

After their little discussion that stormy night, things had changed quite noticeably. Sunday had been spent in essential silence, with an occasional meaningless conversation. Both of them were clearly thinking, trying to understand everything that had happened and everything that had been said. Helga herself could barely believe it; she'd actually admitted to him about the way she hid from everyone, and he hadn't . . . well, he hadn't flat out rejected her. That in itself had made Helga one of the happiest people on the planet.

Sunday night, as they had fallen asleep, Arnold had said something to her that had completely broken the ice. Right before she'd drifted off, he'd called her name softly, and when she blinked up at him, he'd smiled, his face shining silver from the moonlight.

"I'm glad, Helga, that you trust me enough to have been so honest with me yesterday." And with that, he had rolled over.

Helga had been so stunned by his statement that she hadn't been able to think up a proper response until well after he'd fallen asleep, but that didn't stop her from telling him the next morning. After that, things had been incredible. She and Arnold had spent the entire day just talking, talking about things neither one of them had shared with anyone. She explained to him everything about her family, how they looked down upon intellectualism, and art, and . . . well, true emotions. She'd never really been told that she'd been wanted, that she was honestly and truly loved by them. As Arnold had said, the only person who really seemed to give a hoot was Olga.

And he told her about himself. Things he'd kept locked away forever, and she finally understood how much not having parents ate at him. The back to school nights, with all the other kids proudly displaying off their finger-painting or their newest sculpture, and Arnold left with no parent to congratulate him on a drawing well drawn, or a star well won. His grandparents rarely came to school events, not because they didn't care, but because . . . well, they'd never given him a reason why.

Helga sympathized with him on that, and told him so. She'd never have a parent come willingly to a school function; if she wasn't up to win some big trophy, they didn't care at all, what with Miriam fast asleep half the time and Bob too busy yelling into his phone about the business. Parent teacher nights, school plays, field trips . . . not one thing did they come to or chaperone. Other kids had parents who baked cookies, helped them with their projects, and encouraged them. Helga's mother often forgot to pack her a lunch.

He told her how jealous he felt when he saw parents and their children happily playing together on swing sets or in the sandbox or at the ocean. Sure, he'd smile and be happy for the child that he or she had such loving parents, but part of him also hated the child for having something, for having an experience that he couldn't ever have. He'd laughed a little bitterly then, Arnold, him, hating someone? Was that even possible? Helga had told him that it was, after all, he was only human, and he'd admitted to it himself.

They'd talked on and on, about different experiences they'd had and how they'd really been affected, deep down where no one saw. Helga had suggested something to Arnold, after they'd landed on his blind desire to help anyone who asked. He'd said that he couldn't understand how he could be so . . . so naïve when a person he knew wasn't really going to change at all asked for his help with something that was clearly hopeless . . .

"Why can't I ever say no?" He'd said with frustration and he'd sighed.

"You may think this is total bull, Arnold, but I read this somewhere and maybe it'll make sense to you." She'd said and he'd looked up at her. "It said that people tend to do the things they do in response to their inner most feelings." He'd frowned a little. "Think about it, you're always trying to help people, but why?" She watched his frown deepen.

"Because it makes them a better person? Because it makes them happy?" He'd said as he rubbed at the back of his neck.

"Exactly." She said and he blinked. "From everything you've said today, Arnold, you sound just as miserable and lonely as I am, but you simply hide it better than I do." He stared at her. "And how does this relate? Well, hear me out. If your innermost feelings are sad and depressed, then maybe every time you try and help someone out, perhaps you're trying to make yourself feel better." He blinked a second time. "Maybe you're trying to fill the void in yourself by trying to live through everyone else's happiness." He shook his head slowly.

"That's . . . that's way too deep for me." He'd said and he smiled a bit apologetically. "Forgive me, but you're right. It does sound like a bunch of bull." She grinned.

"Hey, I warned you, didn't I?"

Monday night had come quickly, as their conversations had made the whole day just fly by, and now it was Tuesday morning. Helga sighed slightly as she tore her gaze from a sleeping Arnold and stood, stretching and suppressing the yawn. Her eye caught a glimpse of the clock and she grimaced; it was only seven. Heaving a heavier sigh than before, she decided it would be best for her to get dressed and ready to go. Arnold's grandparents would be home soon, and she wanted to be packed so she wouldn't have to stay.

Sure, she wanted to stay, but for some reason she felt odd staying in the house once his grandparents where back. This was what saddened her; it was as though she was being tossed aside after all that had occurred. As she began to walk to the bathroom to change from her pajamas, she tried to shake the thought from her head. No one was tossing her out, she was the one making herself feel that way.

Eight rolled around, and Arnold was still fast asleep. By now Helga had everything in one neat little pile in the living room and was sitting in the kitchen with Abner, eating a small bowl of cereal. She finished it quickly, most of her mind never registering the corn flakes or the milk as she ate, and then washed her bowl without thinking. It had sort of become habit after all.

A few moments after she put her bowl back in the cupboard, she heard the front door open, and her heart sank. They were home.

"Hello there, Eleanor! How're you faring?" Gertie called as Helga walked out into the hall. She was carrying in one hand her suitcase, and the other arm was wrapped around Arnold's grandfather, who had a sullen pout on his face. Helga smiled a little as she took the suitcase from Gertie and accepted the hug from the older woman.

"I'm just fine." She said softly. "So is Arnold, but he's still sleeping." Gertie nodded.

"That boy always loved to sleep late. I think we ought to let him, don't you? Just this once?" Gertie winked as she shut the door and nudged the still silent old man. "Well, aren't you going to say hello?"

"I'm not a baby, Pookie, I can walk just fine now! You heard what the nice doctor lady said, I'm nearly one hundred percent better." He said with a small glare at Gertie, who rolled her eyes. Helga smiled slightly and his attention shifted to her. "Ah, I know you now. The kid who is always pestering short man, right?" He said with a scrutinizing look.

"R-right." Helga stammered and set down the suitcase. "Look, I'd really love to stay and all, but I'm supposed to be home in a few minutes. My sister will be expecting me, and she gets worried when I'm not on time. I wouldn't want her to have to come looking for me." She said nervously as she ducked into the living room and snagged her duffel bag.

"Can't you stay for breakfast, Eleanor? I'll make pancakes in honor of Phil's triumphant return." Gertie said as she returned to the hallway, but Helga shook her head sadly.

"I'm sorry, but I can't. My sister promised to take me out this morning, since she just came back from college and wants to see me." She lied smoothly as she secured her gloves and pulled her hat down over her ears. "Maybe some other time, okay, Gertie?" She said and the older woman gave her another, bit firmer, hug good-bye.

"Don't be a stranger, you hear, Eleanor?" Helga couldn't help but smile as she opened the door.

"I won't, I promise." And with that, she left.

*~*~*

Arnold awoke slowly to the delicious smell of eggs being fried, ham sizzling in the pan, and pancakes. He opened his eyes with a small smile before pushing himself up and stretching with a loud yawn. He blinked and rubbed his eyes as he took a good look around his room and he frowned. Helga's sleeping bag was rolled up neatly and was sitting on the couch with the spare pillow. He slipped his legs over the side of the bed and put on his slippers.

__

She must be the one cooking. He thought with a smile as he stood up and stretched again. _She's actually pretty good; her cooking is better than Grandma's, that's for sure._ He pushed open the door to his room and walked down the stairs.

"Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clemintine…" Arnold froze as he neared the bottom of the stair; he knew that off-tune singing voice anywhere. "You are lost and gone forever, oh my darling Clemintine!"

He bolted down the rest of the stairs and raced through the hallway to the kitchen, where he stood wide-eyed in the doorway, trying to verify if the voice he heard truly meant what he thought it meant.

"Grandma!" Arnold all but yelled as the singing stopped and a bright grin leapt to his face. Sure enough, his grandmother stood by the stove in her cooking cow-boy outfit, her boots tapping gently against the linoleum as she hummed. "Grandpa!" His grandfather sat at the table and looked up at him from a large bowl of cereal.

"Well hey there, short man! Thought you'd never get up, though I suppose your grandma's singing had something to do with it!" His grandfather said with a smile as Arnold rushed forward to embrace him. "Whoa now, do you want to send me back to the hospital with bruised ribs?" He said in response to Arnold's fierce hug.

"Sorry." Arnold said as he eased off sheepishly. "I'm just glad that you're alive and home."

"And you have every right to be."

Arnold looked up to see his grandmother setting a tall stack of pancakes on the table. She gave him a broad grin and pulled out a chair for him. "Eat up, Tex. I understand you've been sick for quite a while." She said as he slipped into the seat and poured himself some orange juice. "How did you and little Eleanor make out? She left before I could ask her much."

Arnold froze for the second time that day.

"She . . . she left already?" He stammered around his orange juice, a small sinking feeling filling him as he realized that Helga wasn't in the kitchen after all.

"Yup, said something about her sister expecting her." His grandmother said as she transferred pancakes to his plate. "She seemed sorry to go, though. I told her that she'd always be welcome here, and that I expect to be seeing more of her. Now eat up, Tex. You'll need your strength to get rid of the last bits of that fever out of you."

"Hm." He replied as he absently began eating a pancake. He supposed Helga's story could be true, as Olga could've called when he was asleep . . . but for some reason the story didn't sit well with him. In fact, he almost had the impression that Helga had bolted.

"Something bothering you, short man?"

Arnold looked up at the concerned expression of his grandfather and gave him a smile around his glass of orange juice. "Not really. I was just thinking about something." He said after he swallowed the juice. "Grandma, I think that I'd like to ask you a favor . . ." He trailed off as he frowned in thought.

"Well then, ask away Tex! I'll see what I can do." His grandmother said brightly as she set a couple of eggs in front of him, which Arnold did his best to avoid. Helga's cooking had ruined him; he could no longer stomach Grandma's eggs. He was already having enough trouble with the pancakes as it was.

"I was thinking. I'd like to repay Helga for everything she's done for me, but . . . I'm not sure . . ." Arnold began, biting his lip in thought. "I'm not sure what I can do for her. Nothing seems like it'd be enough." At that, his grandmother smiled mysteriously and took a seat across from him beside his grandfather. "I was wondering if you had any ideas."

"Now that you mention it, I may have one or two . . ."

*~*~*

Helga lay on her back on the top of her bed, the purple comforter wrinkling around her and her white ceiling becoming more and more interesting as the moments ticked by. She'd draped an arm across her face so it pressed against her forehead while her blue eyes roamed aimlessly across the surface of the ceiling, absently memorizing each little nick in the paint. How long had she been lying here, staring? How long since she fled like a coward from Arnold's house, unable to even stay long enough to say good-bye?

She heaved a heavy sigh, which had been one of many that day, and rolled onto her side. She curled instinctively into a ball, her hands clutching at the fabric of her comforter before her face. Her eyes began examining her hands with the same scrutiny they'd given the ceiling, memorizing blemishes and old scars. Oh, what was she doing, lying here, acting like some weepy heroine from those cheesy romance novels? She should just go out and pretend like nothing happened! Pretend Arnold didn't exist, pretend she'd never helped him, or saved him, or . . . or . . .

Helga gave a small groan and curled more tightly into a ball. How could she even consider trying to forget what had passed between them? Arnold had single handedly reduced her masks to dust, revealing the softer, kinder inner-self she rarely showed. Of course it had frightened her, to be so very vulnerable around him, yet it had felt relieving, to finally show him her true self. And, miracles of miracles, he didn't hate her.

But . . . but it couldn't be possible! She had to admit, the whole thing seemed pretty unreal. Did she dare believe that Arnold, her one and only love, actually liked her true self? No, whom was she kidding? He was just being simple, polite Arnold, who wouldn't say a mean thing, even if it killed him. Best to assume nothing happened. Best to assume that he still thought of her as mean old Helga G. Pataki, the bully who tormented him every chance she got.

"HELGA!"

She lifted her head slightly as she heard Olga call out her name from downstairs. Miriam and Bob were out somewhere; Bob was probably at work and Miriam was probably getting wasted on smoothies, leaving the two sisters home alone with each other.

"WHAT?" Helga yelled back as she pushed herself up slowly. "What is it? What do you want?" She said as her door opened and Olga came into view.

"Are you still hiding out up here?" Olga teased lightly, her lips quirked in a small smile. "Such a silly sister I have."

"I'm catching up on missed sleep." Helga snapped grouchily. "Now what did you want?"

"You have a guest." Olga said as her smile widened. She moved aside and Helga froze in shock. Arnold stood behind her older sister, looking a little sheepish with his hands clasped behind his back. "Shall I leave you two alone then?" Helga caught her sister's wink and couldn't help glaring as Arnold entered and the door shut behind him with a soft click.

"Um . . . hi." Arnold said around a cough, trying to break the silence that had settled upon them. Helga just sat there, staring at him, her mind trying desperately to pull itself out of shock and back into reality. Stay calm, she had to keep saying mentally, stay calm. There is a perfect reason for Arnold to be standing in my bedroom . . .

"Uh . . . hi." She began when her mouth finally began responding to her brain. "So what are you doing here?" She winced inwardly, what a way to be blunt. And from the looks of it, Arnold seemed a little stunned by her tone. "I'm . . . I'm sorry that I didn't say good-bye to you, but . . . well . . ." She trailed off, searching for a way to tell him without hurting his feelings.

"I knew your sister hadn't been expecting you." He said and she looked up at him with a small amount of surprise. "From what my grandma said, it sounded like you'd run away as fast as possible." Helga shut her mouth with a small click, unsure of how to respond.

"I . . . I just . . ." She began while drawing a deep breath. "I just found this past weekend to be somewhat of a surprise. I mean, it didn't seem like it possibly could've happened, and . . ." She trailed off again with a small grimace. Their eyes met briefly, but Helga trained hers on her carpet quickly.

"And you couldn't believe that I would actually want to be friends with you outside of my home." He finished for her and she nodded a little. Helga refused to look up as he gave a small sigh. "Helga, I thought we talked about this. Now that I know who you really are, there's no way I'm going to take all of your pranks just lying down. I'm going to bug you until you decide to show your true colors again."

"But . . ." Helga clasped her hands together and began to concentrate on them fiercely. "I can't just change overnight. People will talk."

"People are going to talk no matter what happens. I thought you promised to start off little by little."

"But what if . . ." She trailed off yet again as the floor creaked and Arnold's footsteps drew close to her. Looking up, she saw him standing right in front of her, his hands on his hips and his eyes narrowed into a small glare. "Arnold, I can't do this! I just . . ."

"Yes, you can Helga! You promised, and I'm going to hold you to it, understand me?" Arnold said sternly and the only thing she could do was nod mutely.

"But listen . . ." Abruptly his voice softened and Helga blinked as she found one of his hands clasped around hers. "You won't be so alone anymore. Once you throw off your bully persona completely, you'll be free of everything holding you back!" He was smiling now and she felt a faint flicker of hope, banishing the darkness of doubt within her. "And Helga, I'll be there. Not only will you have Phoebe, but you'll have me too. And both of us will support you."

"You always know what to say, don't you, football head." Helga said, a faint smile tugging at her lips. "You know exactly what to say in any situation, whether it means lifting someone's spirits or keeping people calm." She shook her head absently before standing and hugging him.

" . . . Helga?!"

She'd clearly shocked him with her impromptu hug, part of her mind thinking it was about time he received a dose of his own medicine. She gave his stunned frame one last squeeze before stepping back and grinning. "That's my way of saying thanks, Arnoldo. What you said means a lot to me."

"Glad that we've reached an understanding then." Arnold said before handing her a small package. "Here, it's from me and Grandma. It's our way of saying thank you for everything you didn't have to do for me."

Helga stared at the gift box for a moment or two, but after Arnold's insistence that she open it, she went right ahead and did just that.

"Wow . . ." She breathed as she removed a small heart-shaped locket made of gold. "This . . . this is for me?" She asked softly, and when Arnold nodded, she slipped it around her neck. It was clearly antique, as it looked extremely old.

"It was my grandmother's." Arnold said, answering her thoughts. "She thought that you'd like it."

"I love it."

"Good." Arnold said with a grin and extended his hand. "Now there's one more piece of your 'thank-you' gift, and that's where you get treated to some of my grandmother's cooking." She took his outstretched hand somewhat reluctantly and he began to pull her from the room.

"I have one question before we go, Arnold."

He stopped pulling her and turned to fix his green-eyed gaze on her. "Sure, what is it?"

"We're friends now, right? I mean, after everything that we went through, you would call us friends, wouldn't you?" Helga asked, her nervousness leaking into her voice. She watched Arnold blink a little but soon he was grinning from ear to ear.

"Of course we are, Helga." He said, his voice full of happiness as he gave her hand a squeeze. "I'd say this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship, wouldn't you?" She returned his smile and the squeeze, enjoying the feel of their fingers intertwined.

"That's what I was hoping for, football head. I didn't save your life for nothing, did I?"

*~*~*

The end!

Wow, this fic took me FOREVER. I'm so very sorry to everyone that it took so long, but I got burnt out on it after a certain point and then nothing seemed to come out right. Well, hope you enjoyed it! Hope to hear from you and what you thought of it. And thanks again to each of my proofreaders, you guys are the best, you hear?

Love forever and ever:

pottergal


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